I know a guy who's building a petting zoo irl and I sent him this tutorial and he said he found it very helpful.

Honestly, the thing I have the most trouble in Planet Zoo is doing the layout. Every time i make a zoo it looks weird because the habitats are either too separated or too close. I hope you address that in a video because it would help me a lot.

I think leaf should continue with this zoo and just build it up to bigger animals and modern enclosures

another cool thing you can do is have an exhibit that's tall enough to be seen before the guests come into the zoo, my local zoo has a Japanese macaque exhibit right as you enter. even before you enter you can see them climbing up their frames and up the fence, it's really cool!

As a former keeper at York’s Wild Kingdom I do appreciate the bit of slander at the beginning of the video. That entrance is abysmal (so is most of the zoo to be fair)

The Indianapolis zoo once had sea lions as the entrance animal. But ever since they changed the entrance and added a welcome center, the new entrance animal is now the chimpanzee.

Leaf, thank you for this video. Knowing which animals to start with is what I struggle with. This will help me out a lot!

Hey Leaf! Would love a tutorial on building indoor animal habitats like reptile houses or nocturnal houses!

I would love a simple easy to follow underwater viewing habitat tutorial

Another animal that I think is a really cool entrance animal is the Snow Leopard. Zoo Boise has one at its entrance (along with Gibbons and Saurus Cranes across the path), and assuming it’s not in its back habitat, she’s usually very active and playing around.

G'Day Leaf! This video was amazing and super helpful - you blended real life concepts and Planet Zoo effortlessly, and your attention to detail is superb. Maybe not for the next video, but I'd love to, at some point, see a video where you discuss how to fill in gaps between enclosures, and how to add realistic terrain changes in your zoo - as the steep path options and intense terrain don't fit most zoos super nicely. Cheers 😁

Holy cow... I could say lots of things about the first minutes of the video but I really had to pause it to say I wasn't expecting at all the Roller Coaster Music. I knew you use to use ZT2 music and also is very powerful but, RCT... I almost weep with it... I didn't even know it carried so much nostalgia. Thanks :)

this tutorial series is simply PERFECT, pls continue with it

I used flamingos and peafowl for my entrance animals, built them a nice habitat that met/exceeded all their needs, made sure there were at least 10 adult flamingos...their social need is always at 0 and I can't figure out why. It started as my franchise zoo got more popular and there were more guests, so I switched the barriers to 1 way glass (even though it's ugly and ruins the effect I was going for). I added multiple do not disturb signs. I gave them more hard shelter. I moved a number of guest facilities out of the entrance so there'd be less traffic/congestion. None of it makes a difference. Their overall welfare is always 0 just because of this one thing. I agree that flamingos are a beautiful entrance animal and I really wanted to use them because they remind me of an irl zoo experience that I wanted to emulate, but I just mechanically can't get them to work and I don't understand why.

Another example of entrance animals are South American animals since the they tend to mainly be small animals and a lot of zoos have a transition from the smaller and less popular to the larger and more popular animals and a lot of South American animals are brightly coloured and can be very noisy. Examples of zoos that have South American animals as entrance animals are Hemsley Conservation Centre which starts off with a capybara and Brazilian tapir enclosure, Jersey zoo has a mixed enclosure for giant anteaters, black and gold howler monkeys and Visayan warty pigs (temporarily) along with having a hooded katydid vivarium in the queuing point for the entrance, Drusilla's has a mixed enclosure for Linne's two-toed sloths, green iguanas, pygmy marmosets and red-footed tortoises, Port Lympe has a black and gold howler monkey enclosure in front of their entrance and Colchester zoo has a transition from having mostly South American animals near the entrance, to Asian animals, to African animals when you go further down the zoo.

this helped so much for my African zoo I’m making! Thank you leaf.

I’ve only ever been to a few zoos, Blackpool zoo, Edinburgh zoo and one near Edinburgh, I saw the one in Blackpool use a type of tortoise, and Edinburgh zoo used 2 animals, if you walk to the left, you see a small meerkat habitat, or if you go straight ahead it’s flamingos, so I usually use those 3 for the start

You really went above and beyond for this one.

The entrance animal of the local aquarium/zoo theme park is a crocodile. A small, inactive crocodile which was rescued locally recently. (The theme park is also a place for research and rehabilitation of animals)

Personally, with the zoos Ive made so far, I've always made my entrance animals one of or multiple of my favorite animals. One zoo had Saltwater crocs on one side, Gators on the other. Another had a mixed wolf habitat. Another had wolves on one side, Salties on the other. My local big zoo has Arapaima as their entrance animal. Not the best choice IMO. Their water is really murky, so you cant see them all that well. But the zoo does offer feeding them treats

Thanks a lot for this tutorial Leaf. These foliage, rock work, AND building tutorials help a lot so I hope you make more in the future.

I’ve been a fan of your mods since 1.4 but i’m now a fan of your videos too!

Looking at zoo maps to see where animal exhibits are on the map is a good way to get a general idea of a species list too

Using the Roller Coaster music in the video was just mindblowing

Going to agree with another comment: a video on laying out the zoo would be nice!

If you for some reason ever come to Alabama, hit me up and I'll show you around the Birmingham Zoo here and completely nerd out to tell you what used to be there back in the day versus the modern atrocity that the entrance is now amongst how they got rid of and buried money island that then became the gator pit after that before they got rid of it, amongst our red river hogs, the two duck ponds where the useless wide open green field is now that's only used for events at the park and has NOTHING in it, where out hippo house used to be as well as the enclosure where our Maned wolf and African wild dogs used to be, and our American bison as well before all of those animals were gotten rid of to make room for the African elephant enclosure that's HUGE for the 3 bulls we have to replace Mona and Suzie after they passed away. My uncle also used to work with Mona and Suzie before he had a heart attack in their enclosure and fell in the empty mote. He was their baby and they wouldn't let any of thr keepers retrieve him. Unfortunately he ended up passing away, and Mona and Suzie were never really the same after.

Would love to see the next video be animal houses. Like reptile house, small mammal etc. would also love to see one for food courts!

Why is this video so good? was completely enthralled 2 seceonds in, and i have the attention span of a goldfish. I haven't picked up this game in 2 years. Guess i know what im playing this weekend

Love seeing my pics in the vid! 😆

it also would be cool sloth bears habitat, sloths, some aviary and reptile house, a caiman or maybe croc exhibit and some ungulate exhibits too

I needed this tutorial so much I struggle so much with the entrance and the entrance animal

So is the concept here a New England-style city zoo where the episodes are framed as tutorials? Fantastic.

How did he knew i needed this the most

I also recently watched some of your zoo tours and recommend going to the Minnesota Zoo and Como Zoo because of all the amazing experiences. They are both in Minnesota, and Como Zoo is free to get in.

You should make a bronx zoo recreation in planet zoo!

this is super helpful! i like these tutorials, pls make more

This video is also giving me ideas on how to reduce stress for animals that want privacy like Takin and gazelles

In the Knoxville Zoo (closest zoo to me) we have black bears as our entrance animal

Perfect video, thank you so much.

Yeeeessss! Been thinking of this. Also will watch the video u mentioned about the entrances 🤍

Good morning Leafboy how are you today 😊🍃

Great video! You’re such an inspiration

love ur vids!! i would also like to see pinnipeds as well 😍

In Givskud zoo i Got to see The pygmy hippos back stage❤❤ in Denmark

Houston zoo in the video yaaay

It’ll probably be a bit till you get to it but could you do a tutorial on over-crossings. There was a zoo I went to as a kid that had an orangutan exhibit that had two parts with a crossing way up in the air. I’ve tried to make it myself a few times but haven’t been able to get it quite right.

I understand wanting to build realistic, but if I am able to make habitats actually animal friendly and big (also known as 'bare minimum' if you truly care about the animals) then I will most certainly do so... I find it really sad seeing how many planet zoo builders (and other games as well) on yt build such small enclosures (sadly how they mostly are in rl) when they can freely choose the size. It just shows that the mindset to stop making animals live under horrible conditions/exploiting animals is so far away for most of humanity - they won't even accept that those problems exist (and in such mass)... Heartbreaking to me. (Just something I notice in many videos and it hurts me every time. Humanity won't stop treating irl animals like shlt if they don't even make any effort with fake ones.) Otherwise great tips and your foliage looks amazing! :)

thank you this is helpful!

And here I use a Saltwater Crocodile as my entrance animal lol. 0/4 ain't bad eh.

My brother will get a gaming laptop soon (not a PC because it will be part for his school) and then i can finally get planet zoo. So yeah this may help? What id o know is that small begin animals can also be fun. At a zoo in my country there are 2 animals that are at the outside of the entrance so you can look at them even without going into the park. Those animals are pheasants and ring tailed lemurs.

Would you make a zootorial about terraforming map in realistic way?

NO WAY PART 2

For next video can you make an under water viewing area for beginners?

I always wonder how you guys get the custom fences to look so good. I have a lot of trouble with overlap and getting them to look realistic and not obnoxious. I also have trouble with mesh.

My local zoos starting animal is a hum bolt penguin

Is this the Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 ambient music?

Personally, I use koalas or tortoises as the first animals

What do you think about peafowl for the entrance? I've started playing planet zoo 3 days ago and I've got peafowl and lemurs close to the entrance and while I think peafowl are super cool but they're not very active and I'm thinking about bringing the lemurs closer to the entrance after watching your video Your videos will be really helpful as I get more into the game, thank you for sharing your work

I HEAR RCT3 MUSIC AROUND THE 2 MINUTE MARK

Maybe you could add Red river hogs?

It's beautiful but it looks very small too

Hi Leaf, New subscriber here. I'm new to the game, a couple weeks in. I like how creative you are. Can I just confirm you're playing on PC so any of your blueprints aren't accessible to me on the workshop on my Xbox console? Or is it a shared workshop? 🤔 Thanks

Someone do 'typically' count on this man 😭

in franchise your really only able to use animals which cost very little to feed, pronghorns, pangolins, aardvark, flamingo etc.

Shouldn’t it be noted that the animals like a certain amount of grass, soil or sand even the types of plants in their habitat? You can find this info by clicking on the animal in the habitat and looking at their habitat foliage needs.

Its kinda hard to apply C.L.A.K for Prehistoric Kingdom... because yk.... dinosaurs...

Do you have overcrowding turned off? My habitat was slightly bigger than yours, I have eight flamingos and it is saying that it is overcrowded.

I can't find those mud walls by zoof on the workshop

Great

I wish I could learn how to do moats for the habitats in my zoo😢

Hi Leaf, are you able to play Prehistoric Kingdom currently?

Will you put this zoo in the workshop when it is finished

0:38 This out of context

8:20 CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD 😭😭😭

not mentioning meerkats is a crime there are only three zoos in my area and 2 of them have meerkats first. the next closest zoo also has meerkats. im sick of meerkats. the other one has koalas for gods sake the designers clearly didnt use clak

I’m on and don’t use mods

Is there a way I can use mods in Geforce?

Love you and your country name?