I've visited aquariums (-ia?) in which the visitors can walk among the sealife in a clear plastic tube. It's fun to be in the middle of the environment with something happening all around. I think it would be nice to have something similar in a zoo, possibly made of chain-link fence, with a walk fitted into the bottom and maybe some extra barricades where needed. I'm thinking of protection from the larger, stronger animals, such as elephants and rhinos. Imagine - monkeys climbing all around, a big cat sunning itself on the tube top, a walk over a hippo pool. Given time, the animals would probably get used to the people and ignore them.-- TeaTotal, Dec 22 2001 Arnd Drossel takes this idea one step further. http://www.dailymai...youve-got-into.html [jutta, Aug 19 2008] Baked: at, for example, the Congo Gorilla Forest at the Bronx Zoo, and the Portland (Oregon) and Seattle zoos' otter exhibits.-- Redbird, Dec 22 2001 Although mostly without the protective barricades...-- StarChaser, Dec 23 2001 How about a network of walk-through tubes of the zoo's surrounding area so the animals could walk through us? Presumably they'd head back for feeding time.-- notripe, Dec 23 2001 Given that many animals are given to using projectile excrement, I think I'd want something a little less perforated than a chain-link tube.-- nick_n_uit, Dec 23 2001 Oh! I've been on one of them aquarium tube thingys. They should have a bird one of them and the tube will be all pooped on. a fantastic time for all.-- funky_monkey, Jul 15 2002 Even then, the animals would hang out in the back of the enclosure, so far away that you just see a blob of hair.
"Hey look, there's the bear!" "Where"?" "In the corner, behind that rock, I can see the very top of it's...head? I think it's black, maybe brown."
Big fun.-- bspollard, Dec 12 2002 Baked. The Toledo Zoo has a Hippo-quarium thing that should work that way, but the hippos hide at the back and you can never see them through the water.-- verobay, Jul 16 2004 I went through a thing like that in a gorilla pen once.-- MikeOxbig, Nov 24 2005 random, halfbakery