Not Your Father's Zoo. Zoos are stepping up their exhibits. Gazing out at the frigid water, your eyes dart back and forth, searching excitedly for the beast you came to see. As a precocious 7-year-old, you know all about animals, and you can name dozens of them on sight. But the one you’re looking for now is different—it’s a magnificent fierce hunter, and it’s your favorite. Suddenly, you catch a glimpse of an enormous white figure swimming toward you, and before you know it, you’re face-to-face with one of the most ferocious animals on earth: a half-ton polar bear. Your mother rushes up behind you, but not out of fear for your safety, rather to savor the moment with you, for you are not out on the frozen arctic tundra, but standing safely behind a five-inch-thick acrylic window at the San Diego Zoo. Polar Bear Plunge is a new type of close-encounter attraction that’s appeared in recent years at zoos around the country. These exhibits give visitors an exciting, active, and very personal way to relate to the animals. As theme parks and interactive museums have lately introduced more exhilarating and stimulating experiences for guests, zoos have had to follow suit; it’s been especially important the past three years, as the economic downturn has made the task of maintaining attendance quite challenging. As a result, zoos are undergoing a lot of changes, and in addition to introducing new immersive environments, they are focusing more on their local markets, holding more unusual and interactive special events, and even installing rides and state-of-the-art playgrounds to increase repeat visitation. Certainly the most ambitious of these changes is the move to new close-encounter exhibits. “We kind of broke the mold of the old traditional zoos where the animals were behind bars on glazed tiles that looked like public rest rooms,” says John Scott Rodgers, a principal with CLR Design, Inc., a Philadelphia firm that’s designing some of these new habitats for zoos. “We’re now focusing on activity-based exhibits.” An example is the Asian Forest Sanctuary, a CLR-designed venue opening July 1 at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash. Jean Jackman, the zoo’s PR and marketing manager, says, “The sanctuary is a dynamic exhibit where animals will be moved around through a complicated network to different habitats. So, on one visit guests might see the tiger in one place, and the next time somewhere else.” On May 1, 2003, the San Diego Zoo opened Absolutely Apes, another groundbreaking habitat that affords guests nose-to-nose encounters with orangutans and siamangs, separated only by a huge 100-foot-long window. Christina Simmons, associate director of PR, reveals that these close-encounter setups stimulate the animals as well as the visitors. “The glass is two-way, so animals can see the guests. We have an orangutan that comes up and plays with kids, and we had a gorilla give birth right in front of guests. At Polar Bear Plunge, the bears like to watch people with big hats, and it’s really funny to see the bears stalking them.” Indeed, Rodgers notes that the new immersion concepts are not just about physically moving the animals and people around and placing them in close proximity. “Many zoos are stimulating the natural stalking, foraging, exploring, and searching jobs of the animals, and trying to challenge them physically and psychologically.” At the Oregon Zoo in Portland, these challenges are employed not only to arouse the animals, but to increase attendance. “Like other zoos, we have to excite people to want to come back,” says Bill LaMarche, media relations coordinator. “We try to think outside the box, so the zookeepers give the polar bears food puzzles and make them figure out how to get to the food, give the wolves scented Christmas trees, etc. With our Presents for Primates, we give them wrapped gifts, invite the media, and try to get some publicity out about what we’re doing.” The zoo’s strategies are apparently working, as its attendance increased 13 percent from 2001 to 2002, the latest years for which figures are available. The Knoxville Zoo opened Black Bear Falls in September of 2000 and bills it as “bringing visitors as close as they should get to a black bear.” The site is designed to simulate the Smoky Mountains and is home to five black bears. The open-air habitat features four, 20-foot-plus waterfalls, a 40-foot log tunnel from which visitors can view the bears’ dens, and a pool where guests can stand behind glass and watch the bears swim. Lessons Learned In the wake of the popularity of the animal-based entertainment trend at theme parks, such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Busch Gardens Tampa, and Sea World, zoos are taking note of ideas they can incorporate, yet stay true to their educational missions. “Zoos are no longer just scientific institutions, and they definitely have learned a lot from theme parks,” asserts Rodgers. At the 2003 IAAPA convention in Orlando, a workshop called “What Zoos Can Learn From Theme Parks” featured speakers from Disney Imagineering, Anheuser-Busch Entertainment, and others, who talked about new ways zoos can create and market their products to attract visitors. “People came back from IAAPA’s Zoo Day with some great ideas,” observes Jane Ballentine of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). “I think some zoos are looking at how they could create those kinds of interactive exhibits, and though they can’t compete with Disney, they can come up with different fun ways for guests to enjoy themselves.” To mix fun with education in a parklike atmosphere, the Knoxville and Point Defiance zoos will soon be opening new, interactive playgrounds. Knoxville’s Kids Cove, debuting later this year, is part of an $18 million capital project to renovate the zoo. It includes a rock-climbing wall, a slide through a waterfall, and a climb into a giant bird’s nest. On the educational side, William Becker, PR manager, says, “Kids will learn how to milk a cow and interact with live animals in a contact yard.” Point Defiance’s Kids Zone coming in 2005 to Tacoma, Wash., will have five sections where kids can play, explore, and have live animal contact, and will include a restored antique carousel featuring endangered species. The North Carolina, Oregon, Forth Worth, and Indianapolis zoos, along with many others, have launched fee-added 4D simulator rides. Some take riders on exhilarating deep sea dives, African safaris, or a journey back to the time of the dinosaurs, while others, like Thunder Road’s harrowing trip around a racetrack, skip the educational pretense and go straight for the thrills. The Indianapolis Zoo has taken this concept one step further with the debut of the Kombo Roller Coaster in 2001. The safari-themed coaster was the first installed at a zoo in the United States, and according to Public Relations Director Judith Gagen, the $600,000, 26-seat ride contributed significantly to a 20 percent increase in the zoo’s ride per-caps from 2001 to 2003. Local Market Appeal During the recent economic downturn, only 34 percent of the zoos that report their attendance to the AZA saw it increase from 2001 to 2002. In the wake of 9/11, many Americans decided not to travel as much and to find their family entertainment closer to home, so zoos began to focus even more on their local markets. The North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, N.C., played off a Civil War legend about Purgatory Mountain, the highest point in the zoo, and presented “Nightmare on Purgatory Mountain” during evenings around Halloween. “We leased a mobile SimEx simulator ride and showed it at night, the first time in years that we’d done an evening event,” explains Rod Hackney, the zoo’s public relations manager. On March 1, 2004, the zoo began running “Days of Thunder” in the simulator, an auto-racing experience that capitalizes on the zoo’s location in the heart of NASCAR country. In June 2001, the Fort Worth Zoo unveiled Texas Wild!, a $40 million expansion that focuses on animals and plants native to Texas. It features 300 animals presented in six distinct wildlife environments and has a variety of amazing, hands-on interactive encounters with Texas wildlife. There’s also a re-creation of a 1900s Texas town that contains the Texas Hall of Wonders, a multimedia museum that houses Wild Weather Extravaganza, where guests are exposed to a variety of Texas weather including “driving rain and whipping winds.” According to Tracy Sturrock, the zoo’s communications manager, attendance increased more than 280,000, or 33 percent, over the 12-month period following the opening of Texas Wild! Reaching Out As zoo exhibits have become more immersive, interactive, and innovative, so have zoo special events. These affairs don’t just give tours to large groups but actually engage the guests in activities involving the animals that are sometimes quite unusual, as happens during nighttime sleepovers. At spring break, the Oregon Zoo plans to have a Polar Bear Pool Party, and LaMarche remarks, “We’re going to have a little fun with it, with the kids wearing their pajamas and watching the animals have ‘pillow fights’ in which food items will be placed in pillows that the animals have to get to.” The Akron Zoo in Ohio has a Pajama Party during which the kids put on their pajamas and have a nighttime scavenger hunt in the zoo. “The kids get to see the animals at night, which they normally don’t ever get to do,” says David Barnhardt, director of marketing and guest services. The Akron Zoo has added other events to its calendar as well. “Because we don’t have any new exhibits opening, we’ve beefed up our special events calendar to give people a reason to come back,” explains Barnhardt. “We have a lot of breakfasts, donated by local restaurants, and then the guests go watch the animals being fed, and our stroller events allow two-year-olds to get ‘hooked’ on the zoo early in life.” The zoo also rents out its boardroom to local businesses and gives them “an unusual retreat.” Scores of zoos have discovered that Halloween is an extremely popular and profitable date for special functions, and many have turned them into weeklong affairs. The Knoxville Zoo’s event, called Boo at the Zoo, drew a record crowd of 21,000 in 2003. “We have a trail through the zoo with about 25 candy stations featuring different sponsors, and we have costumed characters, dancing, and rides and shows,” says Becker. “Last year it was definitely a revenue-maker.” In an effort to make more meaningful contact with the public, the San Diego Zoo introduced live webcams in 1999 with the live birth of a live panda. The effect was astonishing and immediate, says Simmons. “Baby pandas stay in the birthing den for a couple of months after being born, and our first baby panda wasn’t available to guests until it was six months old. But with Pandacam, people were able to see into the birthing den for the first time, and with the other webcams, they’ve kept track of animals throughout their lives over the Internet and built a relationship with individuals.” Simmons adds that the Pandacam made the zoo’s web site “a big location” and has lured people to visit the zoo in person. The Knoxville Zoo has one of the only weekly, half-hour local television programs devoted exclusively to a zoo. The show, New at the Zoo, has been on for 13 years and highlights the exhibits and programs at the zoo, and also promotes new venues like Kids Cove. On the Horizon There are even more participatory exhibits in the making. In July, the Oregon Zoo will open Trillium Creek Family Farm, the next phase of its $30 million Great Northwest project. Trillium Creek will be a real farm where kids will be trained hands-on how to operate a real farm by zoo professionals. In the fall, the Akron Zoo will open an education center that will include Komodo Dragons, and in 2005 will unveil Legends of the Wild, with 15 new interactive animal exhibits. Also coming in 2005 is the Indianapolis Zoo’s refurbished dolphin habitat, which the zoo says will be “a home that should delight and awe all who see it, and offer visitors some of the most wonderful opportunities with dolphins available in the world.” Will the future bring more of these intimate exhibits? “Yes,” replies Rodgers. “I don’t think there’s any question that we’re definitely going to see more activity-based designs in the years to come.”