An immersion exhibit is a naturalistic

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...

environment that gives visitors the sense of being in the animals' habitats. Buildings and barriers are hidden. By recreating sights and other sensorial input from natural environments, immersion exhibits provide an indication about how animals live in the wild. The landscape immersion term and approach were developed in 1975 through the efforts of David Hancocks at

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Woodland Park Zoo Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden located in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the recipient of over 65 awards across multiple categories, and had served appr ...

. This led to the zoo's ground-breaking

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

exhibit, which opened in 1978. The concept became the industry standard by the 1980s, and has since gained widespread acceptance as the best practice for zoological exhibits.

References

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