Kai Kazuto Mikami, AIA

The development of zoo and aquarium exhibits is now well into the third generation of planning and design philosophy that, in my opinion, had its beginnings about twenty-five years ago. These, the third generation ‘naturalistic’ exhibits, are now featured in many zoos and aquariums worldwide.

Our clients emphasize the four tenets of zoo and aquarium planning and design: Conservation, Research, Education, and Entertainment, and we have responded to meet this challenge. A fifth tenet has now been added: the concern for the Welfare of the zoo or aquarium resident, the animals and plants on display.

All of us, our Clients and the associated Consultant teams, have long argued the value of the ‘naturalistic’ exhibit in both attracting the visitor to our facilities and in imparting an intrinsic educational message, a message easily acceptable since it is not overbearing. For the most part, the development of these exhibits has been successful in meeting these goals and has been further validated by increased visitation to these facilities and by corresponding, enthusiastic public acceptance.

But it has come at a price. Development costs are high. Competing facilities also have embraced the new technology. How must the biggest "bang" be developed within the limited budgets which you and we all experience on a daily basis?

One of the possible answers to this challenge is the development of a zoo and/or aquarium that incorporates some of the thrill of theme park rides.

In researching this possibility, I re-visited Disneyland in Anaheim, California several weeks ago to see whether this thesis has merit.

I first visited Disneyland in my late teens soon after it was completed in the mid-1950’s. I remember the Jungle Boat Adventure ride as one of the outstanding features of Disneyland at that time. It has now been more than forty years since that first experience. This most recent visitation re-enacts the excitement of my first experience those many years ago.

For those of you who have not been to Disneyland in the Los Angeles region, the Jungle Boat Adventure is an African boat ride through a simulated Central African river jungle. The boat is similar to the African Queen on which Katherine Hepburn and Humpherey Bogart experienced clouds of insects, the threat of being blown out of the water by the guns of a German fort, the danger of crashing on the rocks of a rapid, and the entrapment within the grasses of a delta swamp. If you have not yet seen this movie, you must rent a video. This movie is a classic.

However, the adventure of the Disneyland Jungle Boat is all simulated. The boat is real, the water is real, the ‘jungle’ plants are real, and the visitors riding the boat are real. The ‘river’ is but a still channel that does not flow and is more a swamp in reality than a river. It is the forward and side-to-side movement of the boat that simulates action. The boats are guided by underwater rails, and the rails are advertised by the very unnatural, herky-jerky movement of the boat. The boat guides are not experienced river pilots but are the young of Southern California, and they all speak a Southern Californian but Disneyesque patois, which is the same from boat to boat. All of the animals and ‘natives’ seen during the ride are animitronic and robotic. The ambience of the ‘movie lot’ does exist, but the reality of the experience does not.

In spite of this artificiality of this experience, the Jungle Boat Adventure is definitely an adventure to those hundreds of visitors who endure the queue many times over every hour. The sense of adventure begins as the visitor enters the queue, which snakes through a replica of a riverfront warehouse. The ‘warehouse’ is supposed to replenish the stores of the riverboats, which lash to the wharf on a frequent schedule. The queue line can be quite lengthy depending on the back up of visitors, but no grumbling is evident. This experience is in anticipation of the ‘real’ adventure of the boat on the ‘river’.

Those ‘wild’ animals, which display movement, are all mechanical. But the mechanical Nile ‘hippos’ rising out of the water on both sides of the boat are nevertheless very dramatic and cause quite a stir. The scene of a herd of elephants bathing in a bend of the river is equally dramatic. A bull elephant emerging from the bush along one side of the river and then another bull on the other side is an experience that causes a rush of excitement; this because they are both closely upon the boat. The rhino attacking a group of native soldiers climbing a totem is amusing and very Disneyesque. All of the other dioramas in the Jungle Boat Adventure, both the still and the mechanical in movement, are designed to elicit a response from the visitor, a response further heightened by the patter of the river boat ‘pilot’.

I see a tremendous possibility in borrowing this Disney concept and applying it to a zoological environment. Such an adventure ride through a living zoo offers many opportunities and would have a great appeal to a broad segment of the visiting population from the young to the old. The animal population of a zoo are also presented to the visitor in a form both original and unique, a form beyond the zoo experience that is currently available.

I would also like to use another ride at Disneyland with special applications possible for the nocturnal zoo world.

The Water Smash ride at Disneyland is an aquatic roller coaster and uses a ‘hollow log’ as the vehicle for transporting the visitor throughout the length of this ride.

Again, a long, themed queue line sets the tone for the ride itself. The wait in the queue when I was there was about 45 minutes. And it was a Tuesday after the end of the summer school holidays. It was a very warm day, but I did not hear any grumbling while in the queue.

The visitor in the queue sees portions of the Water Splash ride from many angles, thus enhancing the sense of anticipation. The environment of the queue ranges from a ‘trail’ alongside a mountain, to wooden stairs climbing the side of the mountain, and to a trail in a cavern in the mountain.

Whereas much of the ride itself is in the open a flume (aqueduct) cut into the side of the mountain, much of the ride is in the dark of the interior of the ‘mountain’. Many of the mechanical dioramas, passed by the visitor, depict adventures and characters from Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh series of cartoons.

A similar concept could offer nocturnal animals as live features during the course of the ride. The progress of the ‘log’ can be slowed or accelerated according to the nature of the exhibits being viewed so the ‘log’ rider can thoroughly experience each nocturnal exhibit.

The Disneyland Water Smash also provides heart-stopping excitement as the hollow log suddenly drops vertically. One such experience is in the dark and is totally unexpected. The second drop occurs in the open but is expected since all the visitors that pass by this ride see this dramatic water drop. The drama of this very visible drop beckons the passing visitor to enter the queue to experience this new adventure.

The future directions suggested above have already been developed in Florida’s Busch Gardens wherein zoological exhibits are part of the overall theme park. Disney’s Animal Kingdom, also in Florida, is offering an adventure ride through an African savanna. Part of the ride will feature a ‘gun fight’ between the game wardens, the drivers of the safari vehicles, and a group of ‘poachers’. We also understand the animals on exhibit are a combination of animitronic and real animals in a zoo setting. It is scheduled to open in 1998 and is, we understand, very pricey. The price for this experience will be on the order of $48.00 USD per visitor.

The technology for developing a system of adventure ride vehicles is available. The combination of the adventure ride and a zoological experience is on the threshold for the future direction of zoo development.