Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum News

snowleopard said:
Craig Ivanyi, who worked at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for 40 years, including over a decade as Executive Director, has now officially retired and his replacement is Hollie Colahan, who has been in the zoo industry for over 25 years.

Here's the zoo's October 16th press release about this week's changing of the guard:

https://www.desertmuseum.org/about/press_releases/New_Executive_Director_Announcement.pdf
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Hopefully this means that ASDM will start leaning back towards the zoo direction, something they have been drifting from as of late.
 
On December 15th, the zoo announced they bred and released 50 Northern Mexican gartersnakes that were hatched between the summer of 2023 and September 2024 into the wild.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

On February 10th, it was announced that the zoo received a critical violation from the USDA after 2 Anna's hummingbirds, a hermit thrush, and a western tanager went missing and were unaccounted for since the prior inspection on November 13th. It was also announced that the zoo received 2 non-critical violations for the following problems*:

2 northern bobwhite quails & a Gambel's quail passed away though no date/cause of death was mentioned. (fix by February 17th)
Lists only having 5 hooded orioles with no births since late August, though inspectors saw unaccounted juvenile orioles. (fix by February 17th)
Rust formed across the entire interior of the black-crowned night heron exhibit (fix by March 16th)

On April 28th, the zoo announced their (0.1) American beaver named Gladys passed away at age 10 the week prior due to internal damage caused by intestinal torsion.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

* One can access these reports by going to this website and putting in the accurate information.
 
Almost a full year ago, ASDM released a fundraising letter asking for donations towards a Mexican Gray Wolf exhibit that would be 8 times larger than the current one (which arguably is outdated). On the link below, there is new information about a future Mexican Gray Wolf exhibit and apparently it will be "nearly ten times the size of the current wolf habitat".

Here's the link:

Mexican Gray Wolves - Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Here is the location of the proposed exhibit, which will be directly next to the zoo's restaurant and will see visitors go through a tunnel that cuts through the wolf enclosure.

wolf_campaign_top.png
 
Piece of May 2025 News Not Mentioned:

On May 19th, the zoo announced they acquired 2+? seahorses (species not specified) 2 weeks prior, which are on display in the aquarium.

27K views · 1K reactions | Meet our tiniest new arrivals! These baby seahorses arrived at our aquarium just over two weeks ago, and they’re already flourishing! | By Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | Facebook

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On June 29th, the zoo announced they acquired 2+ bonytail chubs, which are now on display in the aquarium.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
 
Hello, I came across a website that appears to detail a new master plan for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I haven't seen it posted on here yet

Also, it does seem that the hummingbird aviary will be demolished in these plans. I visited last week and could only find two birds in the entire building. Coupled with the USDA citations posted here, it appears grim for the aviary's future, which saddens me.

I apologize if this isn't new, or I've made a mistake. This is my first post.
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | Master Plan | Tessere
 
Alejandro31 said:
Hello, I came across a website that appears to detail a new master plan for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I haven't seen it posted on here yet

Also, it does seem that the hummingbird aviary will be demolished in these plans. I visited last week and could only find two birds in the entire building. Coupled with the USDA citations posted here, it appears grim for the aviary's future, which saddens me.

I apologize if this isn't new, or I've made a mistake. This is my first post.
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | Master Plan | Tessere
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The cougar, bear and bighorn habitats getting renovations is sweet. Especially for the bighorns since that habitat was kinda unimpressive.

The loss of the hummingbird aviary building is sad, but at least the animal isn’t being phased out.
 
Alejandro31 said:
Hello, I came across a website that appears to detail a new master plan for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I haven't seen it posted on here yet

Also, it does seem that the hummingbird aviary will be demolished in these plans. I visited last week and could only find two birds in the entire building. Coupled with the USDA citations posted here, it appears grim for the aviary's future, which saddens me.

I apologize if this isn't new, or I've made a mistake. This is my first post.
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | Master Plan | Tessere
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Looks like it’ll be the new Mexican wolf exhibit, a bighorn sheep exhibit on the desert loop trail, updated bear and cougar exhibits, an expansion to cat canyon, a large mixed-species yard, new hummingbird aviary, indoor/outdoor reptile complex, relocated entrance, and a new education building with animal ambassadors. Very nice! Although it’s surprising that jaguars aren’t included considering how long they’ve been rumored.
 
That "mixed species observation area" looks pretty big and is enticingly vague. Maybe moving the deer over there and mixing with pronghorn? There are not exactly a ton of Sonoran desert species warranting that amount of space that are not already elsewhere in the park. Maybe wild burro?
 
CMTM said:
That "mixed species observation area" looks pretty big and is enticingly vague. Maybe moving the deer over there and mixing with pronghorn? There are not exactly a ton of Sonoran desert species warranting that amount of space that are not already elsewhere in the park. Maybe wild burro?
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Pronghorn and Jaguar are the only Sonoran Desert species I can think of that would require a large amount of space.
 
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