If you do plan on visiting Tennoji, I do want to give you a heads up that a chunk of the zoo is under construction and there are still other parts of the zoo that are outdated. I assume you already saw drill in Atlanta or one of the former holders in the US but Tennoji does still have one. From what I’ve seen in blog Tennoji’s herp house did have some impressive additions, but I wouldn’t expect the collection to stay static so the species from the blog entries might be gone.
Kobe animal kingdom is, according to Google Maps, around one hour away from Osaka. They do have some inexcusable enclosures such as the cougar, pygmy hippopotamus, and lowland tapir enclosures. But they do have some rarities such as Japanese flying squirrel, Amami spiny rat, Miyako grass lizard, and striped possum.
To any ZTL fanboy reading this, Chinese bamboo rats not on display, despite the ZTL listing. The zoo just closed its kangaroo walkthrough to a make a new enclosure, so there might be something new by the time you are in Japan.
Also in Kobe is Kobe Oji zoo. It’s closer to Osaka than Kobe Animal Kingdom, but it doesn’t offer any rarities other than Tibetan brown bear (they do have bobcats, but I doubt that would impress an American). Otherwise I can’t think of anything else that’s makes this zoo worth going unless you just want to add it to your list of zoos visited. Many of Oji Zoo’s enclosures are outdated and I don’t know if there are any plans to renovate anything anytime soon.
Before I forget it again, if you plan on visiting any zoo in a weekday, do check out the zoo’s opening hours. Most Japanese zoos are closed one day per week.
I assume
@Toki and
@Veno might know a few places I missed.
