This is a decent sea lion habitat, and like most of the zoo there is a level of quality evident in the designing of the enclosure. El Paso is a fairly small zoo that doubled in size about 20 years ago (adding an Asian section to the Americas zone) and then with the additional 10 acres of African exhibits added in early 2010 the final total is 38 acres of impressive animal habitats.
An excerpt from my 2010 review:
El Paso Zoo is the third little gem of a zoo that I toured inside the gargantuan state of Texas, along with Cameron Park and Caldwell. All three of those establishments can be seen in around 3 hours, and El Paso is still slightly the smallest of the trio. Hopefully the new African area will put this zoo on the map, as the attractive grounds and lush exhibits make it a must-see destination for anyone who wishes to visit all of the very best zoos in the United States. I was thoroughly impressed with the lack of bars, metal and cement contained within the zoo, and even the grottoes (tiger, sun bear, spectacled bear and wolves) are a hundred times better than many similar pits that I’ve seen in countless other zoos. At least in El Paso there is sunshine over 300 days a year, and the humidity means that almost all of the enclosures are practically overgrown with plant life. It is a pity that the city is so far away from many of the other major Texas zoos, as like Gladys Porter I only know of a couple of people on ZooChat that have ever even visited the place. If a Canadian like me can drive something like 20,000 km around America visiting zoos then perhaps more Texans should make their way over to the small but excellent El Paso Zoo.
