@Ebirah766 I copied and pasted my mini-review from my Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip thread:
Another new zoo today! The Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park (Alto, MI) opened briefly in 2011 and then for a full year in 2012 and so everything is new and shiny and their website even claims that they have 1,500 animals of 180 species. It is interesting that in the last few years the state of Michigan has seen Indian Creek Zoo, Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park and Sea Life Michigan all open and Detroit Zoo is tentatively planning to open and operate a million-gallon major aquarium in the next few years. With Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park, the facility gets a 9 out of 10 in terms of having top-notch, sparkling clean washrooms (no stinky port-a-potties here!), paved walkways, immaculate plantings and sturdy, well-built enclosures. Everything is crammed into a few acres as there are exhibits every few steps and even a bird show, giraffe feeding and a very small train ride. It is all professionally done and a million times better than Indian Creek Zoo's shambolic setup.
However, there is not a single really good exhibit. The best of all is perhaps the Reticulated Giraffe paddock and I even saw an 11-day old baby giraffe which was a major highlight for all the visitors. There is an American Alligator pool with apparently 48 gators as many are juveniles; it will be intriguing to find out what the zoo does with those animals when they get larger. There are at least 6 primate exhibits, a large mob of Red Kangaroos, many small aviaries, a Reptile House that is fairly junky, and a real community aspect to the visitors. Almost everyone was Caucasian and the animal park is located far from the highway and off in the land of farmers and agriculturalists. Many of the staff members were pale-skinned with blue eyes and looking around it seemed to me that the diversity that I saw in Detroit was absent here and that's a bit disappointing. Then again, maybe it was just my impression, but the place was packed. The zoo is still growing and at the moment it would be difficult to spend much more than an hour and a half there at the most.
It is a bit worrying to see the small sizes of many of the exhibits and there are those on ZooChat who never visit these kind of privately-owned zoos and they would be genuinely shocked. Rarities at this zoo include Spotted Genet, Mandrill (a huge male), Nilgai, Coendou, Blue Wildbeest, Black-backed Jackal, Morelet's Crocodile and Gargoyle Gecko.
@Ebirah766 I agree with you...but that is faint praise. Boulder Ridge, as a new zoo, should have built larger, more modern exhibits because what is there is adequate at best.
