CASE STUDY: HATTIESBURG ZOO
The Hattiesburg Zoo is very small at barely 12 acres in size, but it packs a whole lotta fun into its small footprint.
In fact, the zoo mirrors its surrounding community quite well. Despite the city of Hattiesburg having only 50,000 residents, it also packs a punch. Its historic downtown is experiencing revitalization with hip and contemporary restaurants and breweries popping up on every street. Popular Division I university, Southern Miss, lives on the outskirts of town and provides a foundation for that upbeat college feel. And Hattiesburg Zoo has a similar modern, cool kid feel with splash pad surrounded by rentable cabanas, ropes course, tented overnight camp, deeply themed habitats, and super fun play area complete with a grassy hill for rolling and sliding! What’s more, the Hattiesburg education center, which you can rent for meetings or small parties, is incredibly themed in a very well-done steam punk style!
Hattiesburg Zoo is laid out thoughtfully, has a strong entry experience with a timber entry building that vaguely resembles the train stations at the heart of downtown Hattiesburg, and soon will have a world-class giraffe exhibit with feeding and mixed species savanna. But, Hattiesburg Zoo has never achieved AZA accreditation, which is shocking to me as I toured this zoo that felt just as good, if not better, than many much larger AZA accredited institutions. But that just goes to show that accreditation goes deeper than guest experience.
And this leads to my only complaint about Hattiesburg: lack of differentiation, lack of personality. Despite being consistently impressed by the guest experience, from the tongue-in-cheek bathroom stall door education moments to the impeccably themed snack stand, I wasn’t really drawn into the zoo. It sort of felt like a Hollywood popcorn flick—a lot of flash and glam, but not a lot of soul. Looking back through my photos, I didn’t have any moments of connection with animals. I didn’t have a single animal portrait, except for the humongous pig, Kevin, in the Australia walk-through. The critters in that habitat, which you are allowed to touch if they engage with you, were very stand-off-ish and had no interest in me, despite me being the only guest in the habitat. The tiger was asleep the entire time I was visiting. In fact, now that I think about it, there really wasn’t even all that many animals at the zoo!
The lesson here from a guest experience point of view is reflective of my changing perspective about zoo design generally: engaging storytelling is great, but is sort of pointless without the foundation of connection with animals—which can be achieved without all the fluff. In fact, many of my most heart-felt moments with animals at zoos and aquariums happen in the simplest habitats. Ones that encourage animals to come close to the viewing areas. Ones that allow animals to be easily seen—choosing elevated perches at eye level or providing clear views to prime sleeping spots. Get the basics down first, then layer in the storytelling, not the reverse. And if there’s money, always put that money toward enhancing the animal habitat to be more complex, adding variety, adding freedom to explore, play, and respond to the environment in a variety of ways—before adding any theming. I’m not saying Hattiesburg Zoo doesn’t do that, but (and this may seem a bit harsh) something with the heart and soul of the zoo was missing when I visited—and usually the heart and soul of the zoo is the connection to animals.
Note: Felis Consulting visited Hattiesburg in late 2019.
