Life On The Rocks

Main area of Life On The Rocks, July 25, 2009. Large glass area never has animals as far as I can tell; they prefer to stay in burrows visible in front bottom (which of course is why they designed glass-fronted burrows. This one is for gila monster and snake (forget which kind); left side is skunk.

This area is fantastic, but it is a pity that this zoo has so little financial clout that it took almost a decade for the entire Life on the Rocks to be completely finished. Is anything new on the horizon for ASDM?

This is a bit old, but probably still relatively up to date:

Current and Proposed Projects - Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Exhibit Projects Underway - 2009

Bear exhibit renovation (need plan & funding) — completed Fall 2009
Javelina night holding footers and service pad — completed 2010
Earth-Sciences upgrades — in progress
Dry Cave - Pleistocene Sloth exhibit upgrades
Earth History Room — install horseshoe crab, flatworm and frogamander models
Tortoise Exhibit — in progress
Install interactive components (concrete and fiberglass tortoise models)
Install Pleistocene tortoise w/camel print
Electrical upgrade of reptile exhibits — in progress
Electrical upgrade of Cat Canyon static exhibits — to be complete in FY09

Projects Planned for 2009-2010

Otter exhibit upgrade — Begin FY10
Animal retirement facility — ongoing
Aquatic animal holding — FY09
Montane reptile dioramas — completion — FY10
Grasslands upgrades — begin FY10

Planned Exhibits

Desert Loop Trail Dome — awaiting funding
Aquatics room exhibits refurbishments — fundraising in progress
Jaguar/puma exhibits — exhibit will proceed when funds are in place

Other Exhibit Options under Consideration

Move burrowing owls in with prairie-dogs
Turn current burrowing owl exhibit into roadrunner exhibit
Revamp small P-dogs to be caracara/turkey vulture exhibit
Songbird exhibit over Desert Grassland cienega
Magpie jay near Ironwood complex
Golden eagle near existing aviary
Badger exhibit
Arthropod Hall (cost estimated at ~$2 million) — possible long-term exhibit for DLT dome

Click to expand...

About my first note on glass exhibit - I actually was lucky enough to see a gila monster walking around on the rocks last visit (about a month ago). Even the docent there said that was very unusual.

As for their progress and future plans, they have stalled horribly over the past decade. It literally took ten years to build this small exhibit area (whose opening once construction was done was delayed almost a year).

I have lived in Tucson for 18 years and have been hearing ever since I moved here that they plan to add a jaguar exhibit. Absolutely no progress has been made on this and as far as I know there are no concrete plans in place.

The area next to Life On The Rocks is a large dome exhibit hall that has been empty with a construction road going to it for well over a decade. The construction road was supposed to be closed and the coyote exhibit expanded on top of it (with a new mule deer exhibit nearby), but it does not look like that will happen. The temporary dirt road and bamboo fence seems to have become permanent.

The only major addition besides Life On The Rocks is actually a subtraction - they removed the raptor aviaries and put in an herb garden (which as far as I can tell is a glorified chickenwire exhibit).

There is enough good stuff from the past to make this still a good zoo, but sadly they seem to be going nowhere and their glory days may be behind them. I just remembered there was one other new addition, a theatre and education center funded by county bound money.

It's all about leadership. Under Merv Larson, amazing and progressive exhibits like the Riparian habitat, bighorns, small cat canyon and most impressively the cave were built. Later under David Hancocks and his protege Ken Stockton, the Desert Grasslands, javelina/coyote, coati and the plans for Life on the Rocks were developed.

More recently, it seems ASDM has had business-focused directors, including for a while an odd "two CEO" situation with a biologist and an administrator somehow sharing duties. Clearly this has not worked as well for creating the energy and funding stream needed to get big dreams to come to fruition.

It is sad to hear about the degradation of Cat Canyon, although to me the demolition of the roundhouse aviaries sounds like addition through subtraction.