Densely planted enclosures for whooping, red-crowned, African crowned and blue cranes. These are the best bird exhibits in a zoo that reportedly has one of the largest bird populations of any zoo in the world. It really is too bad that most of the bird exhibits at San Antonio are terribly boring, and the zoo does not have the massive, outstanding walk-through aviaries found in San Diego, Saint Louis or Miami.
When I was last there I counter 11 species of cranes at the zoo. There are only 15 species of cranes in the world, so SA has a quite impressive collection.
Having 10 species of crane is very impressive, and I marked off 4 (there might be more) within the tiny area of "Cranes of the World" at the zoo. I know that there are seemingly endless avenues of aviaries at San Antonio Zoo, which is a pity because for taxonomically accurate zoo fans it would be nice to see ALL of the cranes lumped together in one specific area of the zoo. I prefer biomes or geographical zones, but each to their own.
Well, San Antonio definatly sounds like it has a very nice collection of birds (maybe in bad exhibits), so I might have to try come down there to see this and SeaWorld if/when I come to Texas this summer.
International Crane Foundation (in the state of Wisconsin) is the only place on the planet with all 15 species of crane. I'll have to visit one day as it is even AZA-accredited.
