Persephone
Well-Known Member
I didn't see a species list for this place. Thought I'd throw one up.
The Buffalo Zoo is fascinating for mostly the wrong reasons. Half of it is decent and clearly was updated in recent decades. The back half is a series of courtyards around a WPA era building. It's a fascinating piece of living zoo history, albeit one that isn't really able to provide excellent, or even adequate, habitats for all of its animals. The zoo's collection is pretty solid with a focus on large mammals, and a zoo with rhinos, hyenas, polar bears, giraffes, sea lions, snow leopards, lions, tigers, macaques, gorillas, and a half dozen hoofstock species is pretty impressive. They just... don't really have the space for it all. I kind of wish that they scaled back their mammal collection by half. It does seem like they're in the process of doing that as the elephant house now no longer holds elephants, which is great because that thing was hilariously inadequate. It wasn't even nearly big enough for the black rhino they have in there, but at least the signage suggested that was a temporary arrangement and the rhino had access to the outdoors.
Anyway, guess I'll talk about the front half of the zoo first. It's pretty solid. The otter and sea lion exhibits at the entrance were fine. So was the cinerous vulture aviary, and those things are always a delight to see. The tufted deer exhibit was quite large for the species and I'm sure it's even better in the summer when there are swans mixed in. The giraffe house was awful, especially since the giraffes were locked inside due to weather. One started to run and then had to immediately stop when she realized there wasn't enough space to walk more than three or four steps. It was cool seeing a Rothschild's next to a reticulated, though. You can really get a sense of the size difference. The Indian Rhino, addax, and hyena exhibits were all pretty adequate for their species.
Arctic Edge is still the new, marquee exhibit for the zoo. Now, there are a lot of new, top-tier polar bear exhibits that will blow you away. This is not one of them. It was a perfectly fine polar bear exhibit. The bears were together and the female, Luna. was being very friendly with the visitors. Even came up to me and waved her head a few times. I'm told she's often like this. The bald eagle aviary was quite good and there were a pair of them in a nest. I don't see that often. Always cool. The arctic foxes were the real highlight to me. The exhibit is big enough to have four and they were being quite playful given the cool day. Well, three were. One was trying to nap while the others wouldn't let them. I stayed there and watched them for a long time. Didn't see the Canadian lynx but the exhibit had some pretty solid verticality.
The real star of the zoo to me was the Rainforest Falls building. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best rainforest building I've ever seen but it was still quite nice. The primates and ocelot had great verticality in their exhibits and there was an elevated viewing deck to watch them climbing. That was a really nice touch. There was signage for capybaras but I didn't see any and the exhibit was a bit small and way too aquatic for them. Really hoping they aren't there anymore. The swan geese were also inside for the season. The anteater exhibit was... fine. Nothing special. The anaconda mixed species exhibit was one of the better exhibits for the species I've seen. Overall, a solid species list with a good execution. Not a top tier exhibit, but still a very solid one.
The WPA era half had its highlights. The rocky mountain sheep enclosure had a herd of nine (plus a rabbit who apparently breaks in sometimes to eat their food) and the concrete monument works well enough for the species. It was cool to see a decently large herd as they had some play fights, showed clear social behaviors / dynamics, and were just way more interesting to watch than a pair would be. I think this is also my first time seeing rocky mountain sheep in captivity.
The farm was a perfectly normal farm exhibit. The boat display for kids was fun. I don't have much to say about it.
Oh! The zoo food was actually excellent. That doesn't happen often. I went with a burger and both it and the fries were quite good. Pizza looked a little worse but idk I didn't have it. A bit expensive, sure, but not more than you'd expect for zoo food.
Parts of the WPA structure were nice. The red panda exhibit didn't have a lot of verticality but was otherwise pretty good sized for the species. I don't actually know if their neighbors are still maned wolves or not. Didn't see any and the food laid out was clearly grass. I know they're omnivores, but I didn't take maned wolves to be grazers. There also wasn't any signage up for maned wolves. Just a maddening "Who is this?" sign that did not have an answer. The snow leopard exhibit is really too small. At least on the other side of the WPA outdoor area they merged two or three old exhibits into a pretty solid Japanese macaque habitat.
There are lion and tiger exhibits in the old courtyard. Those were probably some of the best in the country at the time. Now they're just adequate. It was still nice to sit and watch the tiger for a while. There aren't many benches in the zoo and when I did find some by the sheep and the tiger I sat and stayed for a while. Would've sat longer with the meerkats, too, if they had nicer seating than just the ledge beside the exhibit.
The bison yard was kind of small for the size of their herd. That was kind of odd since I'd figure the Buffalo Zoo would have a top tier buffalo exhibit. I'm not sure they could really expand it, though, without cutting into the adjoining park. Maybe someday they'll replace the elephant or giraffe house with a bison enclosure. That would be nice.
This brings us to one of the best and the very worst parts of the zoo. The Amphibian and Reptile Complex has some very fun species and enclosures. (A Europe terrarium! A big exhibit just for a lot of turtles!) I enjoyed my time there and the terrariums were big enough that crowd control wasn't as big of an issue as I'd feared.
I'm sorry, Tropic World.
The Buffalo Zoo gorilla exhibit is just hilariously inadequate. Like, at least half the size of Brookfield's and also entirely indoors. Pretty much no verticality. Just a travesty on every level. The zoo was having some kind of ape awareness event while I was there and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would want to funnel people in that direction. The exhibit would be adequate for a midsize monkey species if they added a proper climbing structure. That feels like the first change I would make if I ran the zoo. Getting rid of the giraffes would be the second.
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what's usually in Kookaburra Korner. Probably the wallaby and kookaburra I saw indoors. Then there was what some duck species and what I think was a himalayan monal. That's really my only uncertainty on the species list.
So, with that out of the way, let's go. Italicized means I didn't see it. For everything but the capybara I suspect it's still on exhibit, I just got unlucky. This is particularly true in Rainforest Falls where the dense foliage and apparently flighted birds means that the sunbittern and heron could've been hiding.
Sea Lion Cove
California Sea Lion
Otter Cove
North American River Otter
Cinerous Vulture
Arctic Edge
Polar Bear
Bald Eagle
Arctic Fox
Canada Lynx
Elephant House
Black Rhino
Goat Island
Domestic Goat
Cecilia Evans Taylor Giraffe House
[Empty yard, looked like a tortoise exhibit]
Rothschild's Giraffe, Reticulated Giraffe, Hybrid Rothschild's x Reticulated Giraffe
MST Bank Rainforest Falls
Free Flight: Roseate Spoonbill, Scarlet Ibis, Western Cattle Egret, Swan Goose, Green-Backed Trogon, Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Scarlet Macaw, Green-Winged Macaw, Sunbittern
White-Faced Saki, Black-Capped Squirrel Monkey, Red-Footed Tortoise
Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle, Giant Amazon River Turtle, Capybara
Black Howler Monkey, Common Squirrel Monkey
[Common Vampire Bat - Closed for Maintenance]
Green Anaconda, Orange-Spotted Freshwater Stingray, Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle
Giant Anteater
Ocelot
Amphibian & Reptile Complex
Hermann's Tortoise, Legless Lizard
Pancake Tortoise, Plated Lizard
Fly River Turtle, Carpet Python
Reticulated Python
Mata Mata
Mangrove Snake
American Boa
Indochinese Box Turtle, Chinese Three-Striped Box Turtle, Annam Leaf Turtle, Crocodile Lizard
Fiji Island Iguana
Malagasy Leaf Gecko, Henkel's Leaf-Tailed Gecko
Dumeril's Monitor
Gopher Tortoise
Western Diamondback Rattlesnake
Bushmaster, Chacoan Horned Frog
Eastern Hellbender
Spotted Turtle, Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake
Panamanian Golden Frog
Puerto Rican Crested Toad
Prehensile-Tailed Skink, Solomon's Island Leaf Frog
Green-and-Black Poison Dart Frog, Yellow-Headed Poison Dart Frog, Santa Isabel Dart Frog, Eyelash Viper, Dyeing Poison Dart Frog
Komodo Dragon
King Cobra
Beaded Lizard
Sidewinder
Mexican Lance-Headed Rattlesnake
Ecostation
Brazilian Agouti, Golden Lion Tamarin, Southern Tamandua
Sand Cat
Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra
Gorilla House
African Rift Lake Cichlids
Western Lowland Gorilla
Unsigned Hornbill or Toucan? They were in an aviary within the gorilla exhibit. Barely visible.
Slender-Tailed Meerkat
Naked Mole Rat
Silver Dollar Fish, Spotted Rafael Catfish
Tentacled Snake
Emerald Swift Lizard
[Costa Rican Tarantula, Exhibit Closed for Maintenance]
Blue Death Feigning Beetle
[Ambassador Animal Exhibit - Ambassador Was Doing Ambassador Stuff]
Hoofstock Yards
Indian Rhino
Indian Rhino, Axis Deer
Addax, Roan Antelope
Spotted Hyena
Common Zebra
Gemsbok
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
Tufted Deer, Swan Goose
Vanishing Animals
Maned Wolf
Red Panda
Snow Leopard
Japanese Macaque
American Bison
Ring-Tailed Lemur
Courtyard Exhibits
African Lion
Siberian Tiger
Delta Sonic Heritage Farm
Mule
American Milking Devon Cow
Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Babydoll Southdown Sheep
[Former Turkey Exhibit]
Domestic Chicken
Kookaburra Korner
Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra, Himalayan Monal?, Mystery Duck
There's a Frank Lloyd Wright house about half a mile from the zoo that I found to be more interesting. You should really check that out.
The Buffalo Zoo is fascinating for mostly the wrong reasons. Half of it is decent and clearly was updated in recent decades. The back half is a series of courtyards around a WPA era building. It's a fascinating piece of living zoo history, albeit one that isn't really able to provide excellent, or even adequate, habitats for all of its animals. The zoo's collection is pretty solid with a focus on large mammals, and a zoo with rhinos, hyenas, polar bears, giraffes, sea lions, snow leopards, lions, tigers, macaques, gorillas, and a half dozen hoofstock species is pretty impressive. They just... don't really have the space for it all. I kind of wish that they scaled back their mammal collection by half. It does seem like they're in the process of doing that as the elephant house now no longer holds elephants, which is great because that thing was hilariously inadequate. It wasn't even nearly big enough for the black rhino they have in there, but at least the signage suggested that was a temporary arrangement and the rhino had access to the outdoors.
Anyway, guess I'll talk about the front half of the zoo first. It's pretty solid. The otter and sea lion exhibits at the entrance were fine. So was the cinerous vulture aviary, and those things are always a delight to see. The tufted deer exhibit was quite large for the species and I'm sure it's even better in the summer when there are swans mixed in. The giraffe house was awful, especially since the giraffes were locked inside due to weather. One started to run and then had to immediately stop when she realized there wasn't enough space to walk more than three or four steps. It was cool seeing a Rothschild's next to a reticulated, though. You can really get a sense of the size difference. The Indian Rhino, addax, and hyena exhibits were all pretty adequate for their species.
Arctic Edge is still the new, marquee exhibit for the zoo. Now, there are a lot of new, top-tier polar bear exhibits that will blow you away. This is not one of them. It was a perfectly fine polar bear exhibit. The bears were together and the female, Luna. was being very friendly with the visitors. Even came up to me and waved her head a few times. I'm told she's often like this. The bald eagle aviary was quite good and there were a pair of them in a nest. I don't see that often. Always cool. The arctic foxes were the real highlight to me. The exhibit is big enough to have four and they were being quite playful given the cool day. Well, three were. One was trying to nap while the others wouldn't let them. I stayed there and watched them for a long time. Didn't see the Canadian lynx but the exhibit had some pretty solid verticality.
The real star of the zoo to me was the Rainforest Falls building. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best rainforest building I've ever seen but it was still quite nice. The primates and ocelot had great verticality in their exhibits and there was an elevated viewing deck to watch them climbing. That was a really nice touch. There was signage for capybaras but I didn't see any and the exhibit was a bit small and way too aquatic for them. Really hoping they aren't there anymore. The swan geese were also inside for the season. The anteater exhibit was... fine. Nothing special. The anaconda mixed species exhibit was one of the better exhibits for the species I've seen. Overall, a solid species list with a good execution. Not a top tier exhibit, but still a very solid one.
The WPA era half had its highlights. The rocky mountain sheep enclosure had a herd of nine (plus a rabbit who apparently breaks in sometimes to eat their food) and the concrete monument works well enough for the species. It was cool to see a decently large herd as they had some play fights, showed clear social behaviors / dynamics, and were just way more interesting to watch than a pair would be. I think this is also my first time seeing rocky mountain sheep in captivity.
The farm was a perfectly normal farm exhibit. The boat display for kids was fun. I don't have much to say about it.
Oh! The zoo food was actually excellent. That doesn't happen often. I went with a burger and both it and the fries were quite good. Pizza looked a little worse but idk I didn't have it. A bit expensive, sure, but not more than you'd expect for zoo food.
Parts of the WPA structure were nice. The red panda exhibit didn't have a lot of verticality but was otherwise pretty good sized for the species. I don't actually know if their neighbors are still maned wolves or not. Didn't see any and the food laid out was clearly grass. I know they're omnivores, but I didn't take maned wolves to be grazers. There also wasn't any signage up for maned wolves. Just a maddening "Who is this?" sign that did not have an answer. The snow leopard exhibit is really too small. At least on the other side of the WPA outdoor area they merged two or three old exhibits into a pretty solid Japanese macaque habitat.
There are lion and tiger exhibits in the old courtyard. Those were probably some of the best in the country at the time. Now they're just adequate. It was still nice to sit and watch the tiger for a while. There aren't many benches in the zoo and when I did find some by the sheep and the tiger I sat and stayed for a while. Would've sat longer with the meerkats, too, if they had nicer seating than just the ledge beside the exhibit.
The bison yard was kind of small for the size of their herd. That was kind of odd since I'd figure the Buffalo Zoo would have a top tier buffalo exhibit. I'm not sure they could really expand it, though, without cutting into the adjoining park. Maybe someday they'll replace the elephant or giraffe house with a bison enclosure. That would be nice.
This brings us to one of the best and the very worst parts of the zoo. The Amphibian and Reptile Complex has some very fun species and enclosures. (A Europe terrarium! A big exhibit just for a lot of turtles!) I enjoyed my time there and the terrariums were big enough that crowd control wasn't as big of an issue as I'd feared.
I'm sorry, Tropic World.
The Buffalo Zoo gorilla exhibit is just hilariously inadequate. Like, at least half the size of Brookfield's and also entirely indoors. Pretty much no verticality. Just a travesty on every level. The zoo was having some kind of ape awareness event while I was there and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would want to funnel people in that direction. The exhibit would be adequate for a midsize monkey species if they added a proper climbing structure. That feels like the first change I would make if I ran the zoo. Getting rid of the giraffes would be the second.
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what's usually in Kookaburra Korner. Probably the wallaby and kookaburra I saw indoors. Then there was what some duck species and what I think was a himalayan monal. That's really my only uncertainty on the species list.
So, with that out of the way, let's go. Italicized means I didn't see it. For everything but the capybara I suspect it's still on exhibit, I just got unlucky. This is particularly true in Rainforest Falls where the dense foliage and apparently flighted birds means that the sunbittern and heron could've been hiding.
Sea Lion Cove
California Sea Lion
Otter Cove
North American River Otter
Cinerous Vulture
Arctic Edge
Polar Bear
Bald Eagle
Arctic Fox
Canada Lynx
Elephant House
Black Rhino
Goat Island
Domestic Goat
Cecilia Evans Taylor Giraffe House
[Empty yard, looked like a tortoise exhibit]
Rothschild's Giraffe, Reticulated Giraffe, Hybrid Rothschild's x Reticulated Giraffe
MST Bank Rainforest Falls
Free Flight: Roseate Spoonbill, Scarlet Ibis, Western Cattle Egret, Swan Goose, Green-Backed Trogon, Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Scarlet Macaw, Green-Winged Macaw, Sunbittern
White-Faced Saki, Black-Capped Squirrel Monkey, Red-Footed Tortoise
Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle, Giant Amazon River Turtle, Capybara
Black Howler Monkey, Common Squirrel Monkey
[Common Vampire Bat - Closed for Maintenance]
Green Anaconda, Orange-Spotted Freshwater Stingray, Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle
Giant Anteater
Ocelot
Amphibian & Reptile Complex
Hermann's Tortoise, Legless Lizard
Pancake Tortoise, Plated Lizard
Fly River Turtle, Carpet Python
Reticulated Python
Mata Mata
Mangrove Snake
American Boa
Indochinese Box Turtle, Chinese Three-Striped Box Turtle, Annam Leaf Turtle, Crocodile Lizard
Fiji Island Iguana
Malagasy Leaf Gecko, Henkel's Leaf-Tailed Gecko
Dumeril's Monitor
Gopher Tortoise
Western Diamondback Rattlesnake
Bushmaster, Chacoan Horned Frog
Eastern Hellbender
Spotted Turtle, Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake
Panamanian Golden Frog
Puerto Rican Crested Toad
Prehensile-Tailed Skink, Solomon's Island Leaf Frog
Green-and-Black Poison Dart Frog, Yellow-Headed Poison Dart Frog, Santa Isabel Dart Frog, Eyelash Viper, Dyeing Poison Dart Frog
Komodo Dragon
King Cobra
Beaded Lizard
Sidewinder
Mexican Lance-Headed Rattlesnake
Ecostation
Brazilian Agouti, Golden Lion Tamarin, Southern Tamandua
Sand Cat
Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra
Gorilla House
African Rift Lake Cichlids
Western Lowland Gorilla
Unsigned Hornbill or Toucan? They were in an aviary within the gorilla exhibit. Barely visible.
Slender-Tailed Meerkat
Naked Mole Rat
Silver Dollar Fish, Spotted Rafael Catfish
Tentacled Snake
Emerald Swift Lizard
[Costa Rican Tarantula, Exhibit Closed for Maintenance]
Blue Death Feigning Beetle
[Ambassador Animal Exhibit - Ambassador Was Doing Ambassador Stuff]
Hoofstock Yards
Indian Rhino
Indian Rhino, Axis Deer
Addax, Roan Antelope
Spotted Hyena
Common Zebra
Gemsbok
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
Tufted Deer, Swan Goose
Vanishing Animals
Maned Wolf
Red Panda
Snow Leopard
Japanese Macaque
American Bison
Ring-Tailed Lemur
Courtyard Exhibits
African Lion
Siberian Tiger
Delta Sonic Heritage Farm
Mule
American Milking Devon Cow
Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Babydoll Southdown Sheep
[Former Turkey Exhibit]
Domestic Chicken
Kookaburra Korner
Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra, Himalayan Monal?, Mystery Duck
There's a Frank Lloyd Wright house about half a mile from the zoo that I found to be more interesting. You should really check that out.
