In terms of exhibit design it is more than adequate but also nothing special whatsoever. The zoo has had a terrific record breeding gorillas and incredibly the apes spend a great deal of time in the water.
An excerpt from my 2010 review:
Gorillas – The zoo has a pair of elderly gorillas in a small, separate enclosure, and the female is in her early 40’s while the male is in his late 40’s. According to the sign the male has sired 17 babies (not all survived) and the zoo has been prolific in breeding many gorillas over the years. There has been something like 30 births in the almost 40 years since the inception of the establishment.
A second, much more expansive exhibit has a troop of 10 of the apes, and I’ve never seen such an active group in all of my life. They were all ages, and were racing around with sticks, twigs and bits of lettuce, slapping each other on the legs, engaging in chasing games across the tall wooden beams in their habitat, and generally causing a ruckus. The most amazing thing of all is that one of the younger gorillas leapt at least 12-15 feet off of a rock into about 2-feet of water! There was an almighty splash, and a total of 4 gorillas went into the water, looked around for food, and stayed there for several minutes.
It gave me pause for thought as I admired the energetic troop for a long period of time. If the enclosure had been empty I would have said that the exhibit was average and not comparable to the huge ape jungles that I’ve seen in many other American zoos. However, the engaging and playful troop of 10 gorillas suddenly made the exhibit outstanding in terms of how many visitors were drawn to the antics of the apes, and so does that mean that Gladys Porter has one of the all-time best gorilla exhibits in North America? I don’t know, you tell me. One last thing about the gorillas is that about half of them (I think that there are 4-5 sisters in the troop) had brownish-blonde hair on much of their bodies, unlike any of the other gorillas that I’ve ever seen.
In terms of exhibit design it is more than adequate but also nothing special whatsoever. The zoo has had a terrific record breeding gorillas and incredibly the apes spend a great deal of time in the water.
An excerpt from my 2010 review:
Gorillas – The zoo has a pair of elderly gorillas in a small, separate enclosure, and the female is in her early 40’s while the male is in his late 40’s. According to the sign the male has sired 17 babies (not all survived) and the zoo has been prolific in breeding many gorillas over the years. There has been something like 30 births in the almost 40 years since the inception of the establishment.
A second, much more expansive exhibit has a troop of 10 of the apes, and I’ve never seen such an active group in all of my life. They were all ages, and were racing around with sticks, twigs and bits of lettuce, slapping each other on the legs, engaging in chasing games across the tall wooden beams in their habitat, and generally causing a ruckus. The most amazing thing of all is that one of the younger gorillas leapt at least 12-15 feet off of a rock into about 2-feet of water! There was an almighty splash, and a total of 4 gorillas went into the water, looked around for food, and stayed there for several minutes.
It gave me pause for thought as I admired the energetic troop for a long period of time. If the enclosure had been empty I would have said that the exhibit was average and not comparable to the huge ape jungles that I’ve seen in many other American zoos. However, the engaging and playful troop of 10 gorillas suddenly made the exhibit outstanding in terms of how many visitors were drawn to the antics of the apes, and so does that mean that Gladys Porter has one of the all-time best gorilla exhibits in North America? I don’t know, you tell me. One last thing about the gorillas is that about half of them (I think that there are 4-5 sisters in the troop) had brownish-blonde hair on much of their bodies, unlike any of the other gorillas that I’ve ever seen.
Thanks! I really, really want to go there to see the Jentink's Duiker and Bushbuck. Also the Bongo, Yellow-backed Duiker, and Kudu. Is Gladys the only zoo to have bushbuck?
The zoo is the only one in North America with harnessed bushbuck, as well as Jentink's duiker. If you want rare exotic animals then Gladys Porter is the place for you!
Another excerpt from my 2010 review:
One fabulous thing about the zoo is the number of cool animals on display. On my visit to Gladys Porter Zoo I personally saw all of these species, many of them rarely exhibited in North American zoos: red-handed tamarin, Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, red brocket deer, Bornean bearded pig, harnessed bushbuck, Jentink’s duiker, Angolan colobus monkey, mata mata turtle, Rio Grande siren salamander, Cuban crocodile, Mindoro crocodile, saltwater crocodile, gaur, bontebok, pygmy hippo, pileated gibbon, Przewalski’s wild horse, bettong, sable antelope and Arabian oryx. On top of that I saw 5 full-grown tigers in the same enclosure (3 of them were white) and the most active gorilla troop I’ve ever seen in all of my lifetime zoo visits.
