Need help with school project about Zoos.?

Question

Im doing a senior project. My central question is: What habitats are zoo animals required to live in, and what consequences can occur when living in a controlled habitat versus a natural one? I cant seem to find any good sites to help me with my information. Anyone know any good sites for zoo info? All i come up with is zoo sites, but not any that give me info on a zoo in general.

Answer 1

It will be hard to find a webpage that covers everything, mainly because there are very little requirements with exhibits. More or less it tends to be designed off of what that zoo wants and needs. Such things can be based off of amount of land to work with, money, number of animals that the exhibit will hold and so on and so forth.

However within say for example the AZA there are specific requirements that are needed for the entire park for the facility to earn AZA support. Their webpage is aza.org, then again not all zoos out there are AZA... but it might help you a bit.

The only things you will find that overlap are the basics... some type of containment (fence, rocks, water), access to water (bowls, lixit) and so on and so forth.

You can visit 100 zoos and look only at their gorilla habitat... no two will be the same. They might overlap in some aspects but they are not carbon copies of one another.

Even then you could have a good zoo that is 100% for the animals and sets their park more like a wild animal park setting, but on the flip side you can have some nasty road side crap holes that is all about the money and throws their animals into concrete pits.

As far as your controlled habitat vs natural one... well for the most part they are exactly the same. Why? Because it is all captivity thus there is always a degree of control and just plain nature. For example take a tiger exhibit... concrete pit or wide open habitat, in both a duck could land and be eaten. Even from the keeper side of things, accidents can happen in both highly controlled or natural settings. I guess what I am trying to say is there can be good/bad in both.

Overall though, its all the same. Even the most wide open habitat has some form of control and the most controlled has a tweak of nature.

Answer 2

Coyote gave you a good response. Another complication is that zoo habitat design is very progressive right now, and there are countless zoos with different priorities and resources. Not to mention that there is a huge variety of species in zoos, each with its own natural history and exhibit needs. Consequently, it is very difficult to categorize and itemize the range of zoo exhibits, or define a controlled vs uncontrolled environment. Basically, all traits of zoo exhibits exist on a continuum, and cannot easily be grouped into black-and-white categories.

The USDA sets the legal minimum standards for captive animals husbandry. The AZA has its own set of guidelines, but only about 7.5% of zoos in the country are accredited by them.