| Abstract: | ZOO exhibits have fairly high attractive power, but often do not engage visitors or hold their attention for long. A drawback of naturalistic zoo exhibits is the frequent inability of zoo visitors to find the animals, as increased animal visibility increases visitor stay time and engagement. Even visible animals can be difficult for visitors to find unaided. In this study, signs pointing out the animals' locations were added to a tiger exhibit at Zoo Atlanta, but they did not increase the number of visitors who found the tigers in the exhibit While the signs were accurate in pointing out the tigers' locations (due to the high predictability of the tigers' resting habits), very few visitors reported even using the signs. Interviews with visitors indicated that visitors did not read the signs, and that animal activity and children's ability to see animals may affect visitors' self‐reports of ability to find tigers. |
