To be fair, real life animals don't have invisible square hitboxes making them secretly as wide as they are long, so they can traverse more area. Also you can't necessarily tell how much additional space they may have backstage.
...is this why my peacocks and peafowl are always """"escaping"""" captivity just by walking by the corner of their exhibit?? Their hitbox is technically outside? Lmao
I built one near me and it was so hard trying to keep it to scale of the zoo. It’s an old zoo though so I think the original parts are smaller than they would be now.
I'm doing a recreation of my local zoo, but it's more about capturing the vibe than exactly replicating. It's a bit of artistic license. I always thought the lion exhibit in this zoo was too small, so I expanded the back side of the enclosure. It still feels basically the same when you look at it, just a bit nicer.
I’ve wanted to try this! We have zoo in Sweden called Skansen which contains Nordic animals (with a big focus on animal welfare) and a LOT of historical Swedish buildings that they have literally moved there from all over the country to rebuild a sort of historical village. It’s a really nice place but boy it’ll be a challenge to recreate on console 🥲
I love my local zoo. Exceptional dedication to welfare. But it simply cannot translated into Planet Zoo. I decided to build it as though it had a billion dollar upgrade.
Former animal caretaker here.
Real zoo’s that do their job right have areas for the animals to explore, size isn’t everyhting but not being able to see the entire enclosure is a good thing. Enrichments are probably the most important thing, making the animals work for food and treats or exploring new areas. Some zoo’s let their birds fly freely during shows, others take their elephants on walks in local forests. And if I remember correctly Fuengirola zoo let animals move around in different enclosures during day/night so they can explore new grounds and smell the other animals.
That being said, many zoo’s need serious improvements which can be done by educating zookeepers in modern animal husbandry. But it is also an economical question and zoo’s need to adapt what animals they have based on that. If you don’t have time for proper enrichments and good enclosures highly demanding and intelligent animals like apes, parrots, large carnivores and elephants perhaps shouldn’t be a part of that particular zoo.
I think zoo’s can be an important to learn more about animals through research, to save animals from extinction, to fund projects in wild places and to let people care and learn to love animals and nature. But there is and always will be need for improvements based on science and animal welfare.
I feel like my local zoo has definitely imporved a lot, but some animals like elephants definitely need a bigger area. Perhaps i could recreate the local zoo as is and then propose expansions using the land that already exists in my local zoo.
For example behind the elephant enclosure is a rather large grass and bush land, but to my knowledge it's not accessible to the elephants. I could make my build use this land.
Or some of the old cage type enclosures I can leave completely empty and put an education sign up or make it a construction site.
Current animal caretaker here! I actually went to school and got my applied associates in zoo science. Great program, but 3 years unpaid interships to graduate maxed my 8k credit lol... but, I also understand it. Interns and volunteers really help zoos and other animal facilities because the truth of the matter is funding is the biggest hinderance to animal care, perfect habitats, etc.
I'm sure if every zoo had unlimited budget, they would have the biggest and best habitats with the most accurate enrichment, plenty of employees to even workloads and keep everything tip top, and more conservation projects.
Sadly, this is not the case, but we do what we can.
idk if it will make you feel any better but a lot of zoos have areas of their enclosures inaccessible to the public - it's actually a requirement to be aza accredited.
the national zoo in the u.s. has spent a lot of the last decade reallocating habitat space to the elephants, and the zoo closest to me has been making similar changes as their older animals pass away and space opens up.
in general there's been a major shift towards prioritizing endangered species breeding + captive release programs. some species have been delisted as extinct in the wild because of this, including przewalski's horses and the scimitar horned oryx.
at the end of the day though, it's your game and you should play it how you like :) i've seen really cool builds of wildlife sanctuaries - maybe you could make something like that instead? maybe even recreate one (or a scaled-down version of one, like a mini-yellowstone or something).
My zoo from my childhood is Omaha NE Henry Doorly Zoo. I tried making the desert dome with the kingdom of the night under and it is so complicated 😅 IRL there’s even a 3rd floor in the basement that’s a bat cave with a pool and stalagmites. I want to finish it so bad but the terrain drives me nuts
I miss it, every time I go visit family now I make it a requirement that we stop 😅 I just wish the Orangutans weren’t closed down for construction when I went last few times. I love the orange dudes 😂🦧🧡
I don't think recreating a real zoo is for everyone, there are a lot of different factors that you have to decide whether or not it is possible to build in the game, with catering to the exaggerated welfare requirements being one of the more difficult ones. Some people do inspired zoos where you use the habitats, zoo layout and theming to make a zoo based on your local zoo rather than trying to replicate it.
Strict replication of real zoos is a very very difficult task to do, I'm one of the few players who can manage to successfully do that. I have strict rules on zoo choices, knowing there are many zoos that cannot be realistically recreated and estimating how much motivation in that zoo I would have building. As such, I choose zoos with "world class" habitat designs, unique features that make the zoo a challenge to build and an overall respectable zoo that values larger habitat spaces over mesh cage collections.
Even still, the world's best zoos still have indoor animal habitats that are pretty small like a Brazilian porcupine habitat in a night house that is far below the ingame welfare requirements. Sandbox mode is essential for recreations allowing me to build small habitats with no issues in the welfare requirements.
Just an example, I was building a modded Brazilian porcupine habitat recently that was barely 80m2 trying to replicate the real zoo habitat in an indoor animal building. Binturong, aardvark, sand cat could replace the porcupine example to get the idea.
Thank you, thats a good answer. I'll think about rephraming my goal. I have more fun if I take loose inspiration from my local zoo and then go crazy with my design. Kind of like an alternate reality where the local zoo has infinite money.
I would turn off animal happiness for a project like this. Don't lose motivation! And don't get caught up thinking the game's measurement of happiness means your local zoo is bad. As others have said, zoos are more about spreading awareness, education, and inspiration. And funding is hard!
Perhaps posting some screenshots of the real zoo and your work to recreate it on this subreddit will help with your motivation. I think it sounds like a great idea! I bet many here would love to see it.
This is why for my recreation animal welfare went out the window. When I started it sandbox mode didn't let you disable welfare yet, so I tried to keep animals happy. Didn't last long. I'm definitely an accuracy over anything kind of person haha
It's still just a game. The devs had to make decisions to balance certain animals to provide more challenge, and it doesn't necessarily represent what animals want or need in real life to feel happy and healthy. That said, by all means, they deserve not to be cramped in unsuitably small enclosures.
I believe there is a way in the settings to turn off all the requirements for habitats so you can build unrestrained. It’s at least a way if you want to try to recreate real life zoos, it can make things much easier. Those settings are also zoo specific so you can change each zoo to your liking.
The zoo in my hometown isn't any good either. They have a white tiger, but the enclosure (At least for viewing) is much smaller than the one for the regular tiger. Most of the spacious and open ones are for herbivores; penguins, elephants, etc. Meanwhile the carnivores, and ones in-between like apes are not so good.
Meanwhile, just 9 hour drive from two directions are metropolitan cities with big zoos. One is a drive-in natural reserve, the other is a mega-theme park with a good zoo.
The first thing I did, after completing a few career parks, was look up my local zoo en the animals they have only to find that not even half of those animals are in the game (yet). I'm on console...
Here in the Netherlands, a lot of zoos have meerkats right at the beginning, sometimes even before you buy a ticket/enter the park for real. My local zoo "Dierenrijk" has meerkats that you could see without even a ticket if you wanted.
And guess what, meerkats aren't available yet, even though they seem to be in almost every single zoo, in the Netherlands at least.
I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid, but even then I remember hating seeing all the animals cooped up. Ever since then I’ve held a deep resentment of the way the human race asserts its power over the animal kingdom.
Rather odd that I enjoy this game so much, then, but kind of makes sense when you analyse things as it gives me the opportunity to allow them more space and happiness, even if it is only virtually.
I get where you’re coming from.
I don't want to turn this into a soapbox because it's not the point of the OP, but zoos have come a long way in the last 10 or so years. I entered the zoo field 6 years ago and the standards at my zoo are always changing for the betterment of the animals. Zoos aren't perfect, but animal welfare is a top priority and ever increasing.
I invite you to look into the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). They're the gold standard for zoos and the goal of a lot of zoos are to be accredited by the AZA, and to do so means a thorough inspection by the AZA every 5 (?) years.
But that's what I'm trying to say, animals aren't "cooped up," they're given the appropriate space they need. But there are other factors at play when it comes to an animals welfare than space. Personally, I'm more concerned about enrichment and engagement. You can give an animal 5 acres to roam, but if you don't give them anything to enrich or be engaged with, that animal is only going to spend its time in a small portion of the yard being bored. Also, not every animal needs a ton of space, every animal is different.
Yes, I appreciate all of that and bow to your better judgment. I think too much with my heart, I’m afraid. Which is why I’d be no good working with animals. I’d just want to crate them all off to the wilds and set them free, even though I know conservation means many simply wouldn’t survive.
I don’t like zoos in real life for this reason. I acknowledge however they were important for me to learn and love animals, as a city kid.
These days I don’t go to zoos or aquariums, part of me would like to but I think I’d be sad and disappointed. They do some really important conservation work, but in my eyes there’s something fundamentally wrong about charging money to see captive animals.
So if a lion cub lost his mother, it's wrong to take him into a zoo/temporary captivity area? Or what if he has some other type of condition where possibly he won't be able to go back to the wild ever? Yes he will be seen for entertainment by humans but as long as he has enough space and enrichment, he will be a happy lion.
Here, have an upvote. Really not sure why you and I are being downvoted for caring about the welfare of animals, especially when the OP has received over 100 upvotes for essentially saying the same thing. Strange world 🤷♂️
To be fair, real life animals don't have invisible square hitboxes making them secretly as wide as they are long, so they can traverse more area. Also you can't necessarily tell how much additional space they may have backstage.
And they can get on and over more stuff Planet Zoo animals can
...is this why my peacocks and peafowl are always """"escaping"""" captivity just by walking by the corner of their exhibit?? Their hitbox is technically outside? Lmao
Genuinely, yes. Not just for peafowl but yeah, the null barriers misread hitboxes a *lot*.
In many German animal parks, peafowls just walk around freely.
A lot of US zoos are like this, too.
Same with Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo
A dangerous animal has escaped!!! (it was a sand cat, truly terrifying stuff)
Animals normally have large backstage areas. Their exhibit area isn’t the only space they have.
I built one near me and it was so hard trying to keep it to scale of the zoo. It’s an old zoo though so I think the original parts are smaller than they would be now.
I'm doing a recreation of my local zoo, but it's more about capturing the vibe than exactly replicating. It's a bit of artistic license. I always thought the lion exhibit in this zoo was too small, so I expanded the back side of the enclosure. It still feels basically the same when you look at it, just a bit nicer.
Hmmm.. That's a good idea, I could extend the unseen parts or fuze several habitats into one.
This! I like getting inspiration from real life zoos but then making altercations, I find that more fun for me too :)
I’ve wanted to try this! We have zoo in Sweden called Skansen which contains Nordic animals (with a big focus on animal welfare) and a LOT of historical Swedish buildings that they have literally moved there from all over the country to rebuild a sort of historical village. It’s a really nice place but boy it’ll be a challenge to recreate on console 🥲
Some animals are happy sleeping and eating and sun bathing without having to walk long distances looking for food or running for their lives. I am.
That's a good point
I love my local zoo. Exceptional dedication to welfare. But it simply cannot translated into Planet Zoo. I decided to build it as though it had a billion dollar upgrade.
Former animal caretaker here. Real zoo’s that do their job right have areas for the animals to explore, size isn’t everyhting but not being able to see the entire enclosure is a good thing. Enrichments are probably the most important thing, making the animals work for food and treats or exploring new areas. Some zoo’s let their birds fly freely during shows, others take their elephants on walks in local forests. And if I remember correctly Fuengirola zoo let animals move around in different enclosures during day/night so they can explore new grounds and smell the other animals. That being said, many zoo’s need serious improvements which can be done by educating zookeepers in modern animal husbandry. But it is also an economical question and zoo’s need to adapt what animals they have based on that. If you don’t have time for proper enrichments and good enclosures highly demanding and intelligent animals like apes, parrots, large carnivores and elephants perhaps shouldn’t be a part of that particular zoo. I think zoo’s can be an important to learn more about animals through research, to save animals from extinction, to fund projects in wild places and to let people care and learn to love animals and nature. But there is and always will be need for improvements based on science and animal welfare.
I feel like my local zoo has definitely imporved a lot, but some animals like elephants definitely need a bigger area. Perhaps i could recreate the local zoo as is and then propose expansions using the land that already exists in my local zoo. For example behind the elephant enclosure is a rather large grass and bush land, but to my knowledge it's not accessible to the elephants. I could make my build use this land. Or some of the old cage type enclosures I can leave completely empty and put an education sign up or make it a construction site.
Current animal caretaker here! I actually went to school and got my applied associates in zoo science. Great program, but 3 years unpaid interships to graduate maxed my 8k credit lol... but, I also understand it. Interns and volunteers really help zoos and other animal facilities because the truth of the matter is funding is the biggest hinderance to animal care, perfect habitats, etc. I'm sure if every zoo had unlimited budget, they would have the biggest and best habitats with the most accurate enrichment, plenty of employees to even workloads and keep everything tip top, and more conservation projects. Sadly, this is not the case, but we do what we can.
idk if it will make you feel any better but a lot of zoos have areas of their enclosures inaccessible to the public - it's actually a requirement to be aza accredited. the national zoo in the u.s. has spent a lot of the last decade reallocating habitat space to the elephants, and the zoo closest to me has been making similar changes as their older animals pass away and space opens up. in general there's been a major shift towards prioritizing endangered species breeding + captive release programs. some species have been delisted as extinct in the wild because of this, including przewalski's horses and the scimitar horned oryx. at the end of the day though, it's your game and you should play it how you like :) i've seen really cool builds of wildlife sanctuaries - maybe you could make something like that instead? maybe even recreate one (or a scaled-down version of one, like a mini-yellowstone or something).
My zoo from my childhood is Omaha NE Henry Doorly Zoo. I tried making the desert dome with the kingdom of the night under and it is so complicated 😅 IRL there’s even a 3rd floor in the basement that’s a bat cave with a pool and stalagmites. I want to finish it so bad but the terrain drives me nuts
Read the comments just to see if someone would bring up the Henry Doorly Zoo!
I miss it, every time I go visit family now I make it a requirement that we stop 😅 I just wish the Orangutans weren’t closed down for construction when I went last few times. I love the orange dudes 😂🦧🧡
They’re opening it up soon! It’s a huge renovation for a bigger enclosure!
It opened today.
I’ll have to stop when I go back to visit family then! I’m in Washington state now but the zoos just don’t compare to Omaha 😔
OH WORD???
Oh wow that sounds amazing!
It really is, if you ever somehow end up in the Midwest of the US I’d recommend a visit 😊🧡
I fucking love the Omaha zoo!
I don't think recreating a real zoo is for everyone, there are a lot of different factors that you have to decide whether or not it is possible to build in the game, with catering to the exaggerated welfare requirements being one of the more difficult ones. Some people do inspired zoos where you use the habitats, zoo layout and theming to make a zoo based on your local zoo rather than trying to replicate it. Strict replication of real zoos is a very very difficult task to do, I'm one of the few players who can manage to successfully do that. I have strict rules on zoo choices, knowing there are many zoos that cannot be realistically recreated and estimating how much motivation in that zoo I would have building. As such, I choose zoos with "world class" habitat designs, unique features that make the zoo a challenge to build and an overall respectable zoo that values larger habitat spaces over mesh cage collections. Even still, the world's best zoos still have indoor animal habitats that are pretty small like a Brazilian porcupine habitat in a night house that is far below the ingame welfare requirements. Sandbox mode is essential for recreations allowing me to build small habitats with no issues in the welfare requirements.
What are you comparing the Brazilian porcupine too? We don’t have that species in game.
Just an example, I was building a modded Brazilian porcupine habitat recently that was barely 80m2 trying to replicate the real zoo habitat in an indoor animal building. Binturong, aardvark, sand cat could replace the porcupine example to get the idea.
Thank you, thats a good answer. I'll think about rephraming my goal. I have more fun if I take loose inspiration from my local zoo and then go crazy with my design. Kind of like an alternate reality where the local zoo has infinite money.
I would turn off animal happiness for a project like this. Don't lose motivation! And don't get caught up thinking the game's measurement of happiness means your local zoo is bad. As others have said, zoos are more about spreading awareness, education, and inspiration. And funding is hard! Perhaps posting some screenshots of the real zoo and your work to recreate it on this subreddit will help with your motivation. I think it sounds like a great idea! I bet many here would love to see it.
Thank you, it's a good idea.
This is why for my recreation animal welfare went out the window. When I started it sandbox mode didn't let you disable welfare yet, so I tried to keep animals happy. Didn't last long. I'm definitely an accuracy over anything kind of person haha
It's still just a game. The devs had to make decisions to balance certain animals to provide more challenge, and it doesn't necessarily represent what animals want or need in real life to feel happy and healthy. That said, by all means, they deserve not to be cramped in unsuitably small enclosures.
I believe there is a way in the settings to turn off all the requirements for habitats so you can build unrestrained. It’s at least a way if you want to try to recreate real life zoos, it can make things much easier. Those settings are also zoo specific so you can change each zoo to your liking.
The zoo in my hometown isn't any good either. They have a white tiger, but the enclosure (At least for viewing) is much smaller than the one for the regular tiger. Most of the spacious and open ones are for herbivores; penguins, elephants, etc. Meanwhile the carnivores, and ones in-between like apes are not so good. Meanwhile, just 9 hour drive from two directions are metropolitan cities with big zoos. One is a drive-in natural reserve, the other is a mega-theme park with a good zoo.
“Just a 9 hour drive” my brother in zoo that’s a different continent
Lmao, yeah. Just saying that I have to drive quite the distance to visit a good zoo.
I base mine on the local open range zoo
The first thing I did, after completing a few career parks, was look up my local zoo en the animals they have only to find that not even half of those animals are in the game (yet). I'm on console... Here in the Netherlands, a lot of zoos have meerkats right at the beginning, sometimes even before you buy a ticket/enter the park for real. My local zoo "Dierenrijk" has meerkats that you could see without even a ticket if you wanted. And guess what, meerkats aren't available yet, even though they seem to be in almost every single zoo, in the Netherlands at least.
Meerkats are available in the Africa Pack.
Which isn't out yet for console, unfortunately
I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid, but even then I remember hating seeing all the animals cooped up. Ever since then I’ve held a deep resentment of the way the human race asserts its power over the animal kingdom. Rather odd that I enjoy this game so much, then, but kind of makes sense when you analyse things as it gives me the opportunity to allow them more space and happiness, even if it is only virtually. I get where you’re coming from.
I don't want to turn this into a soapbox because it's not the point of the OP, but zoos have come a long way in the last 10 or so years. I entered the zoo field 6 years ago and the standards at my zoo are always changing for the betterment of the animals. Zoos aren't perfect, but animal welfare is a top priority and ever increasing. I invite you to look into the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). They're the gold standard for zoos and the goal of a lot of zoos are to be accredited by the AZA, and to do so means a thorough inspection by the AZA every 5 (?) years.
Well that’s all very good to hear and comforting to an extent. But it still doesn’t mean I have to enjoy seeing real animals cooped up.
But that's what I'm trying to say, animals aren't "cooped up," they're given the appropriate space they need. But there are other factors at play when it comes to an animals welfare than space. Personally, I'm more concerned about enrichment and engagement. You can give an animal 5 acres to roam, but if you don't give them anything to enrich or be engaged with, that animal is only going to spend its time in a small portion of the yard being bored. Also, not every animal needs a ton of space, every animal is different.
Yes, I appreciate all of that and bow to your better judgment. I think too much with my heart, I’m afraid. Which is why I’d be no good working with animals. I’d just want to crate them all off to the wilds and set them free, even though I know conservation means many simply wouldn’t survive.
I don’t like zoos in real life for this reason. I acknowledge however they were important for me to learn and love animals, as a city kid. These days I don’t go to zoos or aquariums, part of me would like to but I think I’d be sad and disappointed. They do some really important conservation work, but in my eyes there’s something fundamentally wrong about charging money to see captive animals.
So if a lion cub lost his mother, it's wrong to take him into a zoo/temporary captivity area? Or what if he has some other type of condition where possibly he won't be able to go back to the wild ever? Yes he will be seen for entertainment by humans but as long as he has enough space and enrichment, he will be a happy lion.
Here, have an upvote. Really not sure why you and I are being downvoted for caring about the welfare of animals, especially when the OP has received over 100 upvotes for essentially saying the same thing. Strange world 🤷♂️
What is your opinion on people who keep pets?