Woodland Park Zoo helps animal conservation and is located in Seattle, Washington.
It has won 65 awards and had more than 1.4 million visitors in 2019 alone.
The Woodland Park Zoo occupies the western half of the park, beginning as a small menagerie on Guy C. Phinney estate, a Canadian lumber mill owner and real estate developer.
Six years after Phinney's death, on December 28th 1899, Phinney's wife sold the 188-acre (76 ha) Woodland Park to the city for $5,000 in cash and a mortgage of $95,000.
A large sum was offered for this parcel of land, but then-mayor W. D. Wood vetoed the acquisition. This decision was overturned by the City Council, who wanted the land.
The Olmsted Brothers Firm of Boston were prominent landscape architects in the early 1900s. The city gave them the task of planting Woodland Park, Pritchard Park and Leschi Park. Later on, they relocated a private menagerie to Phinney Ridge.
The Woodland Park zoo became the first in the US to use "landscape immersion exhibits," where animals were surrounded by landscapes that better represented their natural habitats. The design, introduced in 1975, has become popular in zoos throughout the United States since.
The habitat was designed with loads of natural plants and soundproofing rocks. We wanted to make the environment as comfortable & peaceful for our animals as possible.
The initial idea was criticized for many reasons, but the technology has evolved to fix many of these problems. New features like auto-watering make this even easier to maintain & keep up with, while adjusting the ambient temperature helps keep this productive year-round.
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The idea to use naturalistic exhibits became universal, inspiring many copies and inspirations.
The Woodland Park Zoo has been honored with several Best National Exhibit awards from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and ranks second out of all zoos in New York City.
Woodland Park Zoo is one of the worlds first zoos to have created what many refer to as an immersion exhibit. It was opened in the late 1970s, with the help of architect David Hancocks. There are other exhibits too, such as...
Brown bear in Northern Trail area
The zoo's largest inhabitants are of the Asian jungle and grassland variety of animals. The first area is Assam Rhino Reserve and is mainly composed from of a large exhibit containing Indian rhinoceroses & Visayan.
The 2nd section of the Nature Park is called "Bayan Wilds" and features Malayan tigers, Sloth bears, Asian small-clawed otters, and also includes an aviary. The 4th part is "The Trail of Vines" which houses orangutans, siamangs, pythons, Malayan tapir and Lion-
The Rhino Reserve used to be a part of the Elephant Forest but was renamed following the zoo's decision to phase out its elephant program in April 2015.
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