@Lon Tanner mentioned visiting a zoo in another thread and that got me thinking. Since it would have taken the other thread off-topic, I decided to start a new thread for it. Along with circuses, zoos have fallen on bad times in recent decades as people have come to view them in the light of animal abuse. Despite the fact that the habitat no longer exists for some of these animals to live in the wild any longer, there are those who'd rather see them dead than living in a zoo. But that's not what this is about. Which zoos have you been to that have been memorable? The first zoo that I ever visited was the Milwaukee Zoo. I was pretty young then, but I remember that it was an exciting time, given that it was the first time that I had ever seen some of these animals. Moving to California, I visited the San Diego Zoo and the adjacent wildlife park a few times with my son, and that was pretty fun too. Then there was the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. Although this is the trend in zoos today, that was the first zoo that I had seen where the cages weren't visible. Oh, to be sure, there were barriers that served as cages but the animals weren't in visible cages or behind bars. Rather, it was built to resemble a natural habitat. I think the monkey cages and a few others still had visible bars but the plan was to change that, too. Since I visited these three zoos at vastly different periods of my life, I couldn't say which I liked the best, but they were all interesting and fun. Although I haven't visited it yet, my hometown of Wallace, Michigan has had a zoo for the past several years, known as the De Young Family Zoo, which isn't bad for an unincorporated town of a few hundred.
I've never been to a zoo. I have been to a circus. It just didn't excite me as the rest of the audience. I think I would like the zoo better mostly the freedom to walk around.
I went to the San Diego Zoo many years ago, back in the 80's I think. Don't remember a thing about it. It was so large you could spend an hour just walking around it without seeing an animal. We didn't have enough time. Our little town has a tiny zoo. Its main attraction is a black bear. Except for the bear the other animals are ones you would see commonly in the wild around the SE. When I first moved here they kept the bear in a square concrete pit. So many people complained they fixed it up a lot. I guess it's pretty nice now. Haven't been back. The zoo is in a park with a pond with a lot of very fat white geese, because everyone feeds them. I feel sorry for them. It can't be healthy. I guess I'm not much of a zoo person.
My first zoo experience was the Bronx Zoo when I was a young school boy. Later in life as a adult I visited a number of times the San Francisco Zoo and San Diego Zoo. I now live in Fresno, Ca where we have the Fresno Zoo.
Menominee, Michigan had a park with some animals in it, but I didn't consider it to be a zoo. They had some deer and buffalo in a reasonably large, penned-in area, but they had a black bear in a cage that barely gave it enough room to take a few steps and some other local animals in tiny cages.
We used to go to the Detroit Zoo at least once a month as we had memberships and only lived a mile away. I really enjoy zoos and have been to many, both in the U.S. and in other countries.
Last zoo for me was late 80s. It was Atlanta zoo. Thought it was actually pitiful. Large elephants in what I thought were rather small confinement areas.
I'm not a fan of zoos at all - prefer wildlife parks, much more 'open' space for the animals and some are put back into the wild.
My grandmother lived in San Diego, and one of the only trips that I remember my parents taking was a cross country trip from Idaho to California to visit my grandmother, who I only saw the one time in my life. Since my mom and dad had lived near San Diego during the late 1920’s, they had been to the zoo and to Balboa Park, so my folks took me to see the zoo. I was about 9 at the time, and it was an amazing experience for me, especially coming from a tiny north Idaho town where we had nothing even resembling a zoo. I happily went from one enclosure to the next , seeing all of the animals, birds, and snakes. My favorites were (of course) the monkeys. I remember taking my children to the Seattle Zoo when they were little , and they also enjoyed it. Other than that, I don’t remember ever living anywhere near enough to someplace that had a zoo.
The San Diego Zoological Gardens has huge areas for their wild animals to roam in and develop their habitats. This is certainly an inconvenience for those who would prefer them in cages. Hal
Whenever I went to the San Diego Zoo, I'd go to the Zoological Gardens too, although I knew it as the Wildlife Park, if it's the same place.
When we lived in Colorado before, we went to the Denver Zoo a number of times, but especially when they had a couple of "FREE" days during the winter months. We actually seen a couple of bear cubs grow up there. Then, when we moved to Huntersville, North Carolina, we went to a casino in the mountains where there was a small wild animal place that we visited once. Then, living in Florida, we went to the Jacksonville Zoo a few times. Back then, when my wife worked for Chase Bank, they sponsored a tiger area at the zoo, that we went and seen. We also went to Catty Shack Wildlife Sanctuary a few times. Tigers, lions and some other animals, including a full-grown Brown Bear. We went to the last performance of the Ringling Bros Circus that had the elephants, in Jacksonville, FL. While living in Colorado before, we seen this circus three different times and absolutely loved it. There is a Wild Animal Sanctuary, that includes lions, tigers and bears, just southeast of us, that we plan on going to this coming summer. People walk on along a somewhat high walkway, to view the animals. Very open-spaced.