Zoo Atlanta

This guide to Zoo Atlanta starts behind a pane of glass, where a gorilla named Willie B spent decades alone in a bare tiled room with only a tire swing and a stolen television for company. You'll hear how a 1984 magazine investigation branded this zoo one of the worst in the country, costing it its accreditation, and how Mayor Andrew Young brought in a young Georgia Tech psychobiologist named Terry Maple to rebuild it around what animals actually need. The guide follows Maple's unlikely theory as he tore out the bars and tile to design something entirely different where you're standing now. Look around at the wooded habitat before you press play.