Pepper Family Wildlife Center
We started off looking for the lions in the wrong enclosure, but fortunately a nice lady was there and pointed us in the right direction. We made our way over to the side of the lion area that did have lions and were treated by three beautiful big cats, lounging in the sun. We then made our way into the house itself, and got a different view of the lions. The exhibit was decently spacious, and was grassy, with fake rock forming the majority of the back of the enclosure. Overall, I thought it was nice, but I just did not like the look of the big yellow logs standing upright in the enclosure. We moved on over to the snow leopard exhibit, where the animal in question had scaled the wall, and nestled itself in a small nook close to the top of the enclosure. We later came around and saw the Canada lynx exhibit, but there was no lynx in sight. My main issue with the lynx and snow leopard exhibits is that they were too small, they were both of similar proportions, and just didn’t seem to be adequate (area-wise) for the animals in question.
Small Mammal-Reptile House
I started off this area by checking out the reptile exhibits, the first things I saw were a pair of very well made terrariums with lush planting and moss housing emperor newts and oriental fire-bellied toads respectively. Beyond that was an Oriente knight anole in a medium-sized tank which was filled with climbing opportunities for the lizard. After that was a large mixed-species terrarium housing a poorly camouflaged solomon island leaf frog (it was hiding on a live plant, at least it had the right idea), and a pair of prehensile-tailed skinks resting on the branches that filled the upper half of the exhibit. A black tree monitor was lazing on a branch next door, while a green tree python was… doing the same (a lot of animals were resting on branches in this building). I also saw a massasauga in a naturalistic terrarium covered in leaf litter, as well as a pair of gaboon vipers next door. The rio fuerte beaded lizards were all resting by the glass, and the aruba island rattlesnake was sitting on a large rock in its exhibit. Past the rattlesnake was a final enclosure for an african rock python. On the small mammal side I didn’t see the brush-tailed bettong, the tree shrew, moholi galago, pygmy slow loris, prehensile-tailed porcupine, or dwarf mongoose (the enclosure was being cleaned). I did however see the Iraqi sand gecko (listed on
@Grant's species list as a leopard gecko, which is what it looked like), an Egyptian fruit bat, the naked mole rats, and the extremely active cactus mice. The exhibits for the small mammals are very similar to most others you will see. Next up were the asian small-clawed otter and a lounging spectacled caiman. The otter had a fair sized exhibit made of fake rock, featuring a “river” running through it. The caiman’s exhibit was in the average indoor crocodilian layout, just more bland, it had a water body in the front, and the land portion was fake rock. Next was a mixed species exhibit housing a Xingu River ray, an Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle, a white-faced saki, and a golden-headed lion tamarin. All animals were visible, with the ray swimming around the bottom of the water portion, the turtle basking on a log, the saki resting in a very uncomfortable looking position, and the tamarin enjoying its lunch in the back of the enclosure. This enclosure was a pretty decent one overall, with the water portion in front and the land portion in the back (as is most sensible), and a large “tree” that had some branches overhanging the water. Next was an exhibit in which I only saw red devil cichlids. The cichlids had a very shallow pool, and it was terribly overstocked. They were 6-7 inches “tall” and had a 8 ½ - 9 inch deep body of water. It was ridiculously cramped for them as well, as whoever stocked seemed to have thrown as many cichlids as they could possibly have gotten in there. Next up were some red-footed tortoises in an exhibit reminiscent of the one in Shedd, just with more even ground and planting that was restricted to the sides. Moving along there was an exhibit for Jamaican iguanas, which was similar to the red-footed tortoise exhibit, just larger. I only saw the Jamaican iguana when I went to the overhead viewing for this small section of the building. Moving past that I found an artificial rock wall with cramped tanks for frogs nestled inside. These tanks were all 7 inch (ish) cubes. Past that was a vell planted aviary for a couple of Puerto Rican amazons, the final exhibit in the building.
