But why should animal kingdom not be compared with something great? If you did a seach on the "best zoo's in the world" or in even just in the states Animal Kingdom would be in that list so its only fair that it is measured up against those zoo's. IMO it doesnt stack up well against them. What the previous poster wanted me to do is agree that AK is great but I had to compare it to a cr@p zoo. I wasnt allowed to compare it to great zoos like San Diego.....how does that work???
The facts remain the same, it has a relatively low number of animals. This isnt population density as the previous poster wanted me to believe, it actually does have a low number of animals compared to other zoos. This is what I base my opinions on, for a zoo it doesnt have enough animals, for a theme park it doesnt have enough good rides. Therefore it isnt relly great at anything, its average.
To be fair, my post did not claim that DAK was one of the "best zoos in the world", nor did it claim that it had more animals than any other zoo in the world. What I DID say was, "Animal Kingdom has
more animals than average for a zoo --
fewer overall than some of the big ones (like San Diego Animal Park),
but far more than most. I also flat-out stated that DAK had fewer animals than San Diego, so I'm not sure how I didn't allow that comparison.
To your argument ... yes ... DAK has fewer animals and species than Chester Zoo, but then again ... Chester Zoo does not have Broadway-caliber shows, thrill rides, character greetings, a daily parade and all of the other entertainment and attractions elements of DAK. Mostly because Chester Zoo is a
zoo. DAK is
not. It is an animal-centric theme park with a zoo element.
I think it's also important to note that of the 450 species at the Chester Zoo, a large number of them are fish, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. While DAK has a number of reptiles and amphibians, they are not the focus of the park. Fish and invertebrates cover little or none of the collection. DAK does not have an aquarium; it does not house sea lions or penguins or any of the other sealife found at Chester. The bulk of the DAK animals fall into the mammal or bird categories, including the largest herd of Nile hippos in the Western Hemisphere and the only public exhibit of Malayan flying foxes in the Western Hemisphere. So I would argue that DAK
is a significant animal park.
Additionally ... many of Chester's habitats are typically zoo-like, with visible fencing and paddock enclosures, as opposed to the free-roaming environmental areas of DAK that make it seem as though all the animals are able to interact together. Chester is moving towards building more free-roaming areas (like the new bio-dome), but DAK's free-roaming look and feel is the hallmark of the animal areas and different from nearly every other animal park out there.
All that said, I can totally understand that if you walked into DAK expecting a full-sized (Chester-sized) zoo plus a full sized theme park, you would indeed be underwhelmed by the number and variety of animals (or rides) you encountered. Because the park is designed to have the theme park and animal elements share the bill. But really ... a quick look at the website will show you that. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise.
