Bronx Zoo Bronx Zoo News 2025

ZooElephantMan said:
Where did you see/hear about this?
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Back when I was still young enough to do the zoo camp. The theme that year was exhibit design and they brought us to the area where WCS’s exhibit design department was. It was really cool and there was plenty of concept art and old/unused signs around. The people there talked to us about exhibit design and also a bit about future plans.
 
KiwiBirb said:
Back when I was still young enough to do the zoo camp. The theme that year was exhibit design and they brought us to the area where WCS’s exhibit design department was. It was really cool and there was plenty of concept art and old/unused signs around. The people there talked to us about exhibit design and also a bit about future plans.
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This North America/Boreal Forest expansion sounds really exciting to me! As much as I want to see the Monkey House Redeveloped and the Rare Animal Range turned into South America as soon as possible, I’ll happily welcome this coming first if that’s what they want and can afford to do first!

It’d be a major get to have wolverines and ptarmigans! And while I understand the idea behind avoiding using species already at Queens Zoo, I for one would love to have pronghorns and Canada lynx added to the zoo!

Any chance they gave you an idea of where specifically by the bison they wanted to add these changes? Did they suggest anything across the river in that Riverside parking lot?
 
Does anyone know how they keep the gibbons from entering the Gharial enclosure? And are the adjutants able to get into the gharial enclosure?
 
A couple of update's from yesterday's visit
  • A king's skink was added to the kimberly's rock monitor exhibit.
  • The burrowing owls are no longer on display.
  • There is a turkey vulture on display in the birds of prey exhibit.
  • There are juvenile masked lapwings on display.
  • The northern lapwing is unsigned in the boat-billed heron exhibit. The muscovy ducks are signed.
  • There's a pair of unsigned scaly-sided mergansers in the sea bird aviary.
  • In Madagascar, starry night reed frogs and green mantalla have been added to the false tomato frog exhibit.
  • I don't typically walk by the old monkey house so this may be old news that I haven't seen reported - the path to the white faced capuchins is blocked off, and there are signs explaining why the building was closed and that there are plans to renovate it.
  • In the maleo exhibit in the world of birds, there are two unsigned Philippine sailfin lizards.
  • The grey-winged trumpeters are no longer signed, instead there are two unsigned Guam rails.
  • In the second walkthrough aviary, there are Peruvian pigeons now on display.
  • In the children's zoo - the exhibit accross from the fennec fox, next to the kangaroo rat signage, had a small mammal/rodent I haven't seen before - unfortunately in a hide so I couldn't ID it - does anyone know the species?
  • The merten's water monitor exhibit has been renovated.

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Short-Giraffe said:
A couple of update's from yesterday's visit
  • A king's skink was added to the kimberly's rock monitor exhibit.
  • The burrowing owls are no longer on display.
  • There is a turkey vulture on display in the birds of prey exhibit.
  • There are juvenile masked lapwings on display.
  • The northern lapwing is unsigned in the boat-billed heron exhibit. The muscovy ducks are signed.
  • There's a pair of unsigned scaly-sided mergansers in the sea bird aviary.
  • In Madagascar, starry night reed frogs and green mantalla have been added to the false tomato frog exhibit.
  • I don't typically walk by the old monkey house so this may be old news that I haven't seen reported - the path to the white faced capuchins is blocked off, and there are signs explaining why the building was closed and that there are plans to renovate it.
  • In the maleo exhibit in the world of birds, there are two unsigned Philippine sailfin lizards.
  • The grey-winged trumpeters are no longer signed, instead there are two unsigned Guam rails.
  • In the second walkthrough aviary, there are Peruvian pigeons now on display.
  • In the children's zoo - the exhibit accross from the fennec fox, next to the kangaroo rat signage, had a small mammal/rodent I haven't seen before - unfortunately in a hide so I couldn't ID it - does anyone know the species?
  • The merten's water monitor exhibit has been renovated.

View attachment 814225
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The burrowing owls have been gone since at least late April 2025. I know cuz they weren’t there when I participated in Run for The Wild earlier this year. Instead the snowy owls were in there. It’s a shame, cuz I thought they put in a lot of work and did such a nice job with that exhibit.

I’m hoping this Turkey vulture you speak of is in the (now former) burrowing owl exhibit?

I can confirm there was signage for the starry night reed frogs in Madagascar when I went on July 18, but I didn’t see any of the actual frogs. Hence why I didn’t bother to bring it up or memorize the signage for that update post.

The area where the capuchins were has been blocked off for a few years now. Apparently they still have the capuchins behind the scenes (at least from what I heard in 2023, things may have changed, but I don’t know that). And the sign explaining why it closed down and vague suggestions of renovations has probably been there for a while too. Though I only bothered to read that sign in January of this year.

Are you sure you’re not talking about the kangaroo rat at children’s zoo? That has been there forever, but they are rarely visible/usually hiding.
 
I visited the zoo this past Saturday. I loved World of Darkness! I thought the enclosures were in general much better than some comments have suggested. I do wish the bushbaby and cacomistle enclosures were a little larger, but they're adequate. I was a little surprised by how shallow the Aye-Aye enclosure is, but it makes up for it in length and height. Some of those bat and reptile enclosures was really sizeable! It's definitely not the world's greatest nocturnal house, but it's definitely a good exhibit. Still no sign of the dwarf lemurs unfortunately.

A couple of new additions:
-There are a trio of Orange-Fronted Conures with the Sun Parakeets in the quetzal and Kagu habitat. Phenotypically, they appear to be the clarae subspecies.
-I saw what I'm 99% sure was a Wattled Crane in one of the yards behind the adjutant stork aviary.

I think the addition of some fencing in the Gaur enclosure might be so they can make some repairs to the main fence. The sections of fencing closest to the rail were half dismantled.

The old Leopard enclosure in JW isn't covered anymore, but if there is a new occupant it wasn't showing itself.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
I visited the zoo this past Saturday. I loved World of Darkness! I thought the enclosures were in general much better than some comments have suggested. I do wish the bushbaby and cacomistle enclosures were a little larger, but they're adequate. I was a little surprised by how shallow the Aye-Aye enclosure is, but it makes up for it in length and height. Some of those bat and reptile enclosures was really sizeable! It's definitely not the world's greatest nocturnal house, but it's definitely a good exhibit. Still no sign of the dwarf lemurs unfortunately.

A couple of new additions:
-There are a trio of Orange-Fronted Conures with the Sun Parakeets in the quetzal and Kagu habitat. Phenotypically, they appear to be the clarae subspecies.
-I saw what I'm 99% sure was a Wattled Crane in one of the yards behind the adjutant stork aviary.

I think the addition of some fencing in the Gaur enclosure might be so they can make some repairs to the main fence. The sections of fencing closest to the rail were half dismantled.

The old Leopard enclosure in JW isn't covered anymore, but if there is a new occupant it wasn't showing itself.

~Thylo
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Did you happen to make note of what was across from the fennec fox exhibit?
 
ThylacineAlive said:
I visited the zoo this past Saturday. I loved World of Darkness! I thought the enclosures were in general much better than some comments have suggested. I do wish the bushbaby and cacomistle enclosures were a little larger, but they're adequate. I was a little surprised by how shallow the Aye-Aye enclosure is, but it makes up for it in length and height. Some of those bat and reptile enclosures was really sizeable! It's definitely not the world's greatest nocturnal house, but it's definitely a good exhibit. Still no sign of the dwarf lemurs unfortunately.

A couple of new additions:
-There are a trio of Orange-Fronted Conures with the Sun Parakeets in the quetzal and Kagu habitat. Phenotypically, they appear to be the clarae subspecies.
-I saw what I'm 99% sure was a Wattled Crane in one of the yards behind the adjutant stork aviary.

I think the addition of some fencing in the Gaur enclosure might be so they can make some repairs to the main fence. The sections of fencing closest to the rail were half dismantled.

The old Leopard enclosure in JW isn't covered anymore, but if there is a new occupant it wasn't showing itself.

~Thylo
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I am assuming that there is no signage in that former (Future?) leopard ( carnivore) cubicle
 
Does anyone know anything about the introduced population of Italian Wall Lizards on the zoo's grounds? I'd never seen or heard of this species being in NYC before, but I photographed one on Saturday. iNaturalist only starts recording this species on zoo grounds in June of last year. There is also a Reddit post by a Bronx keeper from 2023 reporting them on the zoo's grounds. I assume they must have invaded from the neighboring New York Botanical Garden which has a lot of reports of them but still only going as far back as 2016.

A Google search tells me the species has been introduced to Long Island and Queens since the late 60's, but doesn't really go into the population in the Bronx. Is it a case of the species simply spreading west and north?

Also, a lot of the iNat reports list the lizards as subspecies campestris. Is this true? The original New York population stems from a pet store escape so I'm surprised that these would be known to subspecies.

~Thylo
 
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