PHILADELPHIA >> The Philadelphia Zoo promotes itself as the nation’s first zoo. It opened July 1, 1874, with 1,000 animals and an admission price of a quarter.
The zoo sits on 42 acres of land just outside of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. It is bordered to the east by Martin Luther King Drive, and surrounded by what is called Zoological Drive.
Expansion, therefore, is literally impossible.
Well, maybe not.”We were trying to figure out what was going to be best for animals and people,” said Vikram H. Dewan, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Zoo. “We weren’t going to be able to add any acreage, So we, thought, what if we thought about the third dimension of height and began to move the animals through the trees.”
That was the genesis of what the zoo calls “Zoo 360,” a series of skyline trails that allow the animals to explore beyond their usual pens.
Last year, the zoo introduced the “Big Cat Crossing,” which allows the tigers to walk from their habitat and over the heads of visitors.
This year gives the gorillas their chance to look down from the “Gorilla Treeway.”
“Zoo 360 is something we believe can be great for the animals and great for the visitors,” Dewan said. “Five years ago, we started with ‘Zoo 360.’ We are the first zoo in the world to have created a campus-wide network of trails.”
The zoo, of course, isn’t just a way to parade animals out to people. The zoo’s primary mission is to care for the animals.
“It all started with the principle of what would be best for animal care and animal well-being,” Dewan said. “Then create an opportunity for animals to explore and move.”
For Gerry Ellis, the winner of the zoo’s 2014 Global Conservation Prize, “Zoo 360” is the closest the animals can come to their actual habitat.
“Walking through a forest is an incredible sensory experience,” Ellis said. “You have walls of green right next to you all the time. As you walk through that, you have to have all your senses going at warp speed. It’s amazing when I was walking through that, I thought it’s so much like this experience.
“The Philadelphia Zoo, unlike any zoo in the world, you have the chance to experience the world in 360,” Ellis continued. “Think about all the smells and the wind and the sounds. That’s how you experience it, and that’s how the gorillas are going to be able to experience it now.”
Of course, the animals have a mind of their own. Visitors won’t look up and see gorillas above their heads every minute of the day, but the animals are starting to explore a little more every day.
“It’s really hard, because we can’t really ask them,” Dewan said. “We do know this is a voluntary system. When you create a voluntary system and animals spend more and more time in it, they are telling you something about what that system means to them.
“In addition to that, for the first time, we are also beginning to do some testing around understanding the way in which animals react to these things. We also know this is creating a way for them to move, which is creating physical activity as well. As we know, as primates, ourselves included, physical activity is something that’s good.”
It’s not just the tigers and gorillas. The Great Ape Trail is also up above. Then there’s the Treetop Trail, which allows monkeys and lemurs to peer down on adoring fans. There is also KidZoo U, which contains trails for goats to tour the area.
For the next round of “Zoo 360,” Dewan said there will be an opportunity for the giraffes and rhinos to wander.
“That will be a ground-based system,” Dewan said. “We are looking forward to those animals getting a chance to see everything.
