the best zoo in Germany?

the best zoo in Germany?
04-07-2008

You may be interested to see a new zoo survey in Germany's Stern magazine, also available on their website (stern.de). A lesgue table has been arrived at in a very scientific fashion, ranking Germany's 50 major zoos (these are split into small and large zoos).

The top 5 is:
1. West Berlin
2. East Berlin
3. Wuppertal
4. Hamburg
5. Leipzig

I'm very surprised to see Berlin Tierpark so highly ranked. I love the place, but it is certainly awful in very many ways. if I were an elephant, a big cat, a monkey or a sun bear, i don't think I should want to end up there!

Bottom of the list for the big zoos are Saarbrucken and Neunkirchen, each of which probably deserves this fate.

Really worth looking at the web-site.

05-07-2008

I just bought that magazine this week during my trip to Germany. While I think it's an interesting list, I don't agree with the rankings. Placing Tierpark Berlin so high and then Cologne as number 15 and Hannover as number 16 makes no sense.

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I am Toddy, the zoo-enthusiast from Denmark!
Different zoos visited: 77
Favourite animal: Aardvark
Website: www.zoos.dk

05-07-2008

Ranking zoos is so subjective imo anyone with some time and a decent brain could make a list and defend it to it's own standards.

I've seen Wuppertal Zoo last month, and i wouldn't know why it's ranked above Cologne or Dortmund... All three have their faults and good points.

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My Zoo-Photo's (soon more to be added): http://jwer.fotopic.net

05-07-2008

Hey Toddy, welcome back

The test was very subjectiv... In my opinion, Tiergarten Nürnberg is the best in germany

05-07-2008

Many years ago I would have rated Frankfurt as far and away Germany's top zoo, though Berlin's had larger collections. Now Frankfurt doesn't even feature in these lists and as I haven't been there for many years I'm woindering has it 'declined' over time?

06-07-2008

maybe someone should do a thread on Frankfurt, because there doesn't appear to be one. Frankfurt is the only European zoo I've been to and I thought it was fantastic.

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nod if you can read this

06-07-2008

Hmm, I've only read about German zoos on the net, but it seems to me that each zoo has one highlight, and the rest is a bit averaged out.

Berlin TP seems to look like a nice zoo though,

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Usually only one way to settle things Shuffle off or DDR battle that's the asian way,

06-07-2008

German zoos are probably the best in the world. Not the most innovative (Holland?) or the most glamorous (America?) or the most politically Correct (anywhere other than Germany, probably), but for breadth of collection, for wonderful buildings old and new, for superb grounds, for atmosphere, for gravitas, for husbandry….

Berlin Tierpark is fantastic in many ways. A superb collection, a design which does not bow to the needs of an ignorant public, an ambitious vastness which is unique, I think, in the world. But some of the enclosures are bland, bland, bland – the newish African monkey house, for example, is a throwback to the days when monkeys were housed in what looked like a bathroom (white tiles abound). And some of the old enclosures are of a different era.

Frankfurt is superb, of course. It still has the best small mammal house in Europe, one of the best bird houses, an old but excellent aquarium and reptile house, and some very nice newer things, such as the cat house and the sealion pools. Unfortunately, their brilliant director Christian Schmidt left a year or so ago, and so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the years ahead.

There are many other excellent zoos too. I wouldn’t have had Hamburg anywhere so high up the list, nor Nuremberg, but others like these too a great deal. Cologne has always been very strong, Duisburg has improved vastly in recent years, Munich is stunningly beautiful…. All across the country are wonderful places.

I don’t think the Stern survey considered work being done away from the zoos concerned.

Of course, this is all just a parlour game – but a very enjoyable one at that.

07-07-2008

You can't tell " which zoo is the best", because all zoos are so diffrent, every zoo has its good and its bad things, and the most important thing is, but most people can't see it, is, how' is the zoo keeping the animals behind the scenes ?

I've seen many things behind the scenes at San Diego Zoo and a few other Zoos in the USA and of course, germany, and fact is, most animals, which are living"behhind the scens" are living in poor conditions. I've seen the last Hunters Hartebeest at Brownsville behind the scenes, the place, where they have kept the animal, was looking like a garbage place.....I've seen to many bad conditions for a lot of animals behind the scenes. San Diego is just one example.

In the most cases, I can visit many zoos just in the visitors area, so I can't tell in that cases, how the animals are living there behind the scenes.

Forget this "Stern"test, this test was not made by zoo experts or animal keepers(one of them was formely a zookeepr, but I think, this was a long time ago...) I bet, would this test made by a group of animal keepers, the Berlin Animal Park would be never on the second place, this park is one of the worst zoos in germany I know...I've visited this park this week, the park has a great collection, no question, but most of the living conditions, especially hoofed animals, are very bad.

Of course I have my favourite zoos in germany, Frankfurt or Nuremberg for example, but both zoos has bad things, too.As like as every zoo.

This test was very bad, there are so many mistakes. One example, because a few people here can't read german. They wrote, the Tierpark Ströhen is the only zoo on the european mainland whos keeping L'Hoests Monkeys. That's wrong, we have two further zoos in germany with that species( Tierpark Schwaigern and the Zoo Aschersleben ) and a few french zoos with L'Hoets Monkeys....Or france and germany are not part of the european mainland....? There are a lot of more mistakes, another example is, they wrote, the"King cheetah"is a " species". That's wrong, too. Its just a striped variation of a cheetah, as like as the"black panther" is just a black mutation of the leopard.

So the test is absolutly weakmindend.