Though it was founded in 1899, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo spent most of its first century as a fairly obscure, unremarkable facility. It had the same story as many urban American zoos, both in terms of its animals and how they were exhibited and its sometimes tenuous toehold in the city. It's story really changed in 1976 with the hiring of British architect David Hancocks, the zoo's design coordinator, as the new director.
An architect can be a dangerous figure to have heading up a zoo, with to strong a focus on erecting buildings and making artistic statements, forgetting that the first job of the exhibit is to provide the animal with an appropriate place to live. Hancocks, however, was an architect of a different mold. Having previously worked at the London Zoo and Bristol Zoo, Hancocks was unique for his time in appreciating that exhibits should be designed around the needs of the animals, rather than those of the visitor or the keepers. Not that the visitor was ignored, by any means. The approach that Hancocks pursued was what would eventually be known as "landscape immersion," the attempt to recreate the habitat of the animal to such an extent that the visitor might actually feel that they were part of the exhibit (as opposed to the earlier natural exhibits designed by Carl Hagenbeck, in which visitors were on the outside looking in).
The result, over the next several years, was the transformation of the Woodland Park Zoo to a campus of eco-regions with large, natural habitats that attempted to blend the public and animal spaces seamlessly. Despite some initial opposition from colleagues, the trend has gradually spread across many zoos, with varying degrees of success. While there are now bigger, more elaborate, and more realistic versions at other zoos across the world, many of Seattle's exhibits still hold up remarkably well to scrutiny, all the more so when one considers their pioneering nature.
Upon entering the zoo, the first exhibit many visitors will encounter is one of its earliest expressions of landscape immersion, the African Savanna. Entering a recreated East African village (one of the more realistic depictions of one that is seen in many US zoos), visitor are treated to an overlook of a grassland grazed by zebras, ostriches, and Grant's gazelles, while giraffes tower over their exhibit-mates. (The presence of the giraffe barn and its adjacent holding yard down the trail detracts a little from the realism of the experience, but a barn capable of housing 15 foot-tall animals is a little hard to camouflage anyway). Down the trail is a small but attractive walk-through aviary, as well as handsome exhibits for patas monkeys and warthogs (the latter can be seen very close up by a window into a burrow). The premier attraction is a grassy lion habitat with a rocky kopje, one of the more handsome habitats for the species I'd seen. At the time of my visit there was also a hippopotamus exhibit of a style fairly typical of the '80s - modest pool, no underwater viewing, capacity for maybe two or three animals - but hippos have since been phased out of the collection. I'm not sure what's happening with the space at the present time.
If there was one exhibit which truly exemplified Hancocks' vision for the zoo, it would be the Tropical Rainforest, and especially its magnificent gorilla exhibit. The habitat is a large, lush, well-planted exhibit, from which the gorillas can be seen at various vantage points, either from across moats or behind glass in a heated shelter, with apes sometimes being viewed high up in the branches of mature trees. While it's a great example of an ape habitat, it's still so much what we would expect from a gorilla habitat that it's easy to forget how controversial the whole thing was when it opened. Other zoo directors claimed it would be folly - the apes would be invisible to the public, or they'd destroy all the plants and leave it a dustbowl, or they'd climb the trees, fall down, and be killed. Instead, it was an absolute triumph, allowing the gorillas to show a much wider range of natural behavior. It was also noted that it was not just the gorillas that showed a change in behavior - visitors to the exhibit were noted to be much quieter, calmer, and more respectful of the animals than they had been when viewing gorillas in old barred cages.
The gorilla habitat is joined by smaller, but equally attractive habitats for lemurs and colobus, before visitors approach the rainforest building itself. The ground level is perhaps one of the more dated parts of the zoo (and it's pushing 35 years old at this point), with glass-fronted habitats for various small animals, primarily South American. Upstairs, there is a lush walk-through aviary, home to a variety of rare and beautiful birds, such as Socorro dove and Andean cock-of-the-rock. Outside is the newest addition to the Tropical Rainforest area, Jaguar Cove, which opened in 2003. I've often felt that, among the big cats, jaguars and leopards are the species that often get the short-end of the stick in exhibit quality, but Jaguar Cove is a beautiful habitat. It's well-planted and spacious; as the name would imply, there's a large water component, with underwater viewing available should the big cats opt to enter their pool. Additional viewing is provided of a nearby cave for the cats.
The Tropical Forest blends neatly into the two-part Asian rainforest section of the zoo. Banyan Wilds features tigers, sloth bears, and Asian small-clawed otters in exhibits that are all handsome enough, though in my opinion falling short in comparison to the gorilla, lemur, colobus, and jaguar exhibits. This part of the zoo is also a little too open and sunny, in my opinion, to really capture a forest vibe. Stronger in my opinion was Trail of Vines, separated from Banyan Wilds by the main visitor path but thematically attached. This features habitats for more tropical primates - orangutans, Francois' langurs, and siamangs - as well as Malayan tapirs, Visayan warty pigs, and a reticulated python. The zoo's former elephant exhibit - a spacious compound that was configured to resemble an Asian logging camp - is now the home to Indian rhinos, which doesn't work as well thematically, but does provide a handsome living space for the large herbivores
Tomorrow, we'll continue with the rest of Woodland Park Zoo. (PS, just a fun little aside, but I suppose Woodland Park was one of the first US zoos to go online. It's website is literally www.zoo.org, and that's also the domain for its emails. No one else got there first?)
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