• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.13-25
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• 2016

This study aims to analyze the change process in order to set the improvement strategies for the zoo in the Seoul Children's Grand Park. The zoo can be reviewed through three significant time periods with noticeable changes. As a framework to analyze the major changes that happened in the zoo, this study looks at the changes in terms of the planning aspect as well as the animal welfare and program operation aspect. The findings are as follows: first, the era of general theme park turned out to have focused on exhibiting animals to meet visitor demands by expanding the zoo area of the zoo without enlarging stockyards for the animals. Second, the environmental park era created a zoo having entertaining and educational functions by arranging animal houses with the concept of zoological taxonomy and introducing animal behavioral enrichment, animal welfare programs and visitor participatory programs. The era of the zoo as an Urban Cultural Park improved old animal houses and facilities for the welfare of the animals and increased educational programs to preserve species and provide environmental education. The current status of the zoo turns out not to meet the conditions for creating an ecological zoo, which is the overall goal for contemporary zoos. The improvement strategies based on the analysis through three different eras are three-fold. First, the zoo needs to improve the boundary conditions of the animals to showcase animal wildness through landscape immersion. Second, the zoo should provide a shared environment for animals from the same habitats by changing the classification methods from the existing polyphyletic taxon to a classification that considers ecological habitat. Third, the zoo needs to develop various ecological education programs by supplementing specialists in professional education.