West African River Experience

This large facility is in Camden, New Jersey right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. It features mostly indoor underwater aquarium exhibits from around the world, but also has an outdoor garden with penguins and seals. It also has a large indoor exhibit for hippos, African birds, and African Crested Porcupine.

I think that I unfortunately know the answer already, but do the hippos ever have access to the great outdoors?

No, unless there is an off-exhibit area but I certainly didn't see anything that looked like it. The exhibit area is skylit but I don't think they can be opened. The hippos were certainly active though, and they share this exhibit with a large variety of birds, and the porcupine!

Also, the visitors were EATING IT UP...more interest in the hippos than many of the aquariums it seemed.

One of the eternal truths of aquariums - the most interesting animals to visitors are basically anything other than fish. Such is life!

And is the ground concrete or sand?

I think it was entirely concrete.

Looks like very small exhibit for a hippo.

What birds are living there?

Why is it acceptable to keep an animal like this indoors 24/7?

Everyone always says that this exhibit is "so small" but I honestly feel that it's bigger than the one at the Philadelphia Zoo that everyone enjoys. You are correct, there are no outdoor off-exhibit areas.

As for bird species here, there are 13 species last I knew of. They are: Abdim's Stork, Yellow-vented Bulbul, Cattle Egret, Java Rice Finch, Hammerkop, Piping Hornbill, Red-billed Hornbill, Black-cheeked Lovebird, Blue-bellied Roller, Emerald Starling, Golden-breasted Starling, Violaceous Turaco, and Taveta Golden Weaver. They used to have Snowy-headed Robin Chat but they spent too much time on the ground, which doesn't work with the hippos. They were talking about getting Superb Starlings, but not sure if they ever did.