A More Ethical Zoo Experience: The Future Is Holographic Zoos

It is a rare moment when both those who love zoos and those who advocate for animal liberation can celebrate a shared win. Recently, we have seen an uptick in holographic zoos around the world, or zoos that use lasers to create holographic projections rather than imprisoning real animals to entertain visitors.

These facilities can take the visitor experience to a level that “traditional” zoos cannot; at holographic zoos, visitors can experience the animals through interactive hologram tunnels, creating an immersive wildlife experience without needing to worry about animal welfare concerns or threats to visitor health or safety from animal escapes, injury, or disease. Some holographic zoos incorporate 4D effects, like wind, temperature, and smells, to enhance the realism of the experience within inspiring replicas of these animals’ habitats in the natural world.

Holographic Zoos Are Opening around the World

The first holographic zoo in the world, Australia’s Axiom Holographics, opened in Brisbane, Australia in 2023. A total of 50 3D holographic creatures are featured on display here in life-like detail, ranging across diverse environments, from the Africa savannah, the Arctic tundra, the deep sea, and even to prehistoric times, showcasing animals including giraffes, elephants, dinosaurs, and a gigantic 82-foot whale. Inside the vast 16,000-square-foot holographic zoo, there are two 65-foot tunnels adorned with screens on three sides and rooms with screens surrounding viewers on all four walls. The experience is also individualized; upon entry, visitors are given position-tracked glasses, enabling the graphics engine to generate a different image for each visitor viewing the screens. The zoo also includes 11 different four-player holographic arcade games. In addition to Texas, in which Austin just welcomed its first holographic zoo in early 2025, Axiom Holographics plans to expand its hologram entertainment centers to Japan, parts of Europe, and more in the future. The first holographic zoo in the U.S., Zoocade, opened in Austin, Texas, in February 2025. Holographic zoos have also been launched in China and Canada since 2023.

A Safe and Cruelty-Free Way to Get Up Close with Animals

These new age zoos provide visitors with an opportunity to experience animals they would typically never get to see up close without negatively impacting them or their habitats in the wild. Holographic zoos also solve many of the issues that animal advocates have flagged about the zoo industry for decades, including the fact that less than 20% of all animals kept in zoos are threatened with extinction; that zoos may shorten the lifespan of some long-lived animals, like elephants, significantly (sometimes by decades) and severely impact the mental and physical health of many species held captive; and that 75% of all zoos in the world offer at least one exploitative animal-visitor interaction. Animal interactions provided by zoos decrease the welfare of the animals involved due to the high stress levels experienced and increase instances of zoos promoting poor/inaccurate education experiences, during which visitors frequently learn the wrong things about the animals, including the false ideas that wild animals can be safe to interact with and can make good pets.

Holographic Zoos Are a Good Financial Investment

Holographic zoos are also a good financial move; according to Franchise Direct, The Hologram Zoo’s trial at the Australian Museum in Sydney drew over 25,000 visitors in 42 days, generating over $343,000 USD in revenue. This means that one in every 200 residents of Sydney attended this groundbreaking exhibition. While most zoos with real animals must keep and breed animals continuously to generate interest and revenue among visitors to make a profit, holographic zoos do not require this constant cycle of imprisonment to make their money. Further, the technology enables holographic zoo curators to change animal collections as many times as necessary, without having to worry about transferring live animals between facilities, separating bonded social groups, dealing with increased aggression in new social groups, handling disease outbreaks, or any of the other problems that zoos must handle on a regular basis in efforts to keep their collections fresh, exciting, and “attractive” for visitors.

Using Technology to Promote Compassion

It is our hope that holographic zoos become more popular all over the world to help us end the exploitation of live animals for human entertainment, one zoo at a time. Since their launch in October 2023, more than 20 Hologram Zoos have been sold. If you have the opportunity to visit a holographic zoo (especially in lieu of a “traditional” zoo), please join us in supporting these facilities that may finally provide a long-term solution to ending the widespread suffering of animals in captivity at zoos. With these advances in technology rapidly occurring around the world, perhaps we will live to see an unselfish future in which humans choose not to be entertained by the peril of another; but this transition will require a conscious effort on behalf of millions of zoo visitors each year to help support this timely and cruelty free change.

Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Devan