The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is located in a valley surrounded by very steep slopes. The entrance is rather busy for the ticket booths and the rainforest building are between two parking lots. The Rainforest admission is seperate from the zoo admission and can also be combined.
The Rainforest
This is a very large two story tropical complex. It is often mis-perceived as a large enclosed rainforest much like Omaha's Lied Jungle or Bronx's JungleWorld. However it is not. Upon entering the building you are faced with a towering slender waterfall that drops from the several feet. This is the only "large enclosed" portion of the building. You step to your right a follow a trail with heavy vegetation on both sides. Further along the path you begin to encounter butterflies amongst the foilage and come to a large tree with stairs inside the trunk (there is also an elevator nearby for the handicap) that takes you to the second level. At the second level you will most likely pass by the unmarked doors that lead to the animal galleries and continue downstairs back to the waterfall. Or you could follow through the doors into a "research station". The station is full of graphics, artifacts, and televisions that play rainforest videos. Two windows of the station stare into the large central orangutan exhibit and an exhibit of some tropical animal (in the past it has been binturong, komodo dragons, or glts.
Upon leaving the station you are emersed into the south american stretch of the gallery with coendou, giant anteater, tapir, macaws, capybara, and sloths. Everything is open, there are only short barriers and small hahas to seperate visitor from animal. There are no live trees, everything appears faux concrete (there may have been mulch on the ground too, but I was rather distracted by the concrete) much like Brookfield's Tropic World (hence the 10 years behind quote of Steve Taylor's). Some live vegetation are in planters away from the animals. And this is the only place I have ever seen coendou sleep upside down by their tails...and I even worked with Coendou for two years at another zoo! Back to the tour....The second stretch of the gallery consists of fishing cats and ocelots in several exhibits. The final stretch includes a second story viewing of langurs, a large small-clawed otter exhibit, a bare concrete two-story orangutan exhibit with one large faux tree that towers the enclosure, and a small exhibit that used to house tarsiers now mouse deer. You will then exit through a set of doors next to the ones you enter the gallery with.
Back down the stairs will take you to the entrance of another gallery (and the waterfall) that contains the majority of the zoo's reptile collection. This gallery winds through and takes you past several reptile exhibits, a large glassed Egyptian Fruit Bat, a leaf-cutter ant colony, insects, large microscopes to peek at microscopic life. The path then leads passed an open exhibit that originally held water monitors, now holds crestred porcupines, and a large heavily aquatic crocodilan exhibit that once held American Crocodiles, now Gharials. And of course the paths lead through the gift shop then on out the building passed the waterfall.
Main Zoo Area
This area is basically of african theme. Upon entering the zoo to your left is the pachyderm house, this area will be the new Elephant Crossing exhibit that will be much better and have three yards totaling 3 acres. Originaly plans also included hippos and bongo, but I'm sure they were left out to give the elephants more space. The zoo will find a different place to put these species in their collection, for they both have a long history at the zoo. Cleveland was the first American zoo with bongo!
Straight ahead is a restuarant that overlooks the flamingo exhibit and one of their three mixed-species savannahs. Passed the flamingos going straight will lead you past a lion exhibit then onto the lake in the center of the zoo. From the entrance going right will pass the restaurant towards the leopard exhibit, monkey island, the other two savannahs (one of which holds a good sized herd of Masai Giraffe), and the Black Rhinoceros/Cheetah exhibit. Beyond this path is the new veterinary hospital.
Australian Adventure
Just north of the Pachyderm House is the fairly new Australian Adventure and in my opinion, one of the few great Australian exhibits in American zoos. A central plaza has a small eatery, restrooms, a gumhouse (koalas, goodfellow's tree kangaroos, and echidnas), lorikeet aviary, walkway towards the cassowary and various wallaby exhibits, and the gate to the kangaroo walkabout that leads to the "children's zoo" area. The children's zoo portion is towered by a large fake tree that has a winding path up to the top and a slide down. There is also a ranchhouse and a barnyard.
Primate, Cat, and Aquatics Building
A long walk up wooden stairs and boardwalk brings you to the top of the valley to the zoo's highest point. This is an old animal house that originally housed the zoo's extensive carnivore and primate collections takes up this large portion of the zoo. In fact the zoo boasted for several years as the largest primate collection in North America...however they dont seem to make that claim anymore. After the nearby Cleveland Aquarium closed in 1985, room was made and renovated to take on a large amount of fish and other aquatic life. This building is full of your typical 1960s sterile rockwork and glassed enclosure, however they are quite larger than one would expect. There is also a off-shoot gallery specifically with oriental carnivores.
Northern Trek
At the far end of the zoo property are the zoo's northern tier animal species. It is another long walk from the waterfowl lake at the zoo's center along a ridge above giraffe savannah and following a small river called "big creek" under the fulton road bridge that spans the valley (and is now under construction) to the northern trek area. The bridge was demolished a few years ago (try and find it on google, it took more than one try to blow it up) and is now being rebuilt above the zoo.
The northern trek area is a circular path that follows along the awesome Wolf Wilderness exhibit that showcases Grey Wolves and Beavers, Polar Bears, Pinnipeds. There is also a smaller circular path inside the large path that circles the bear grottos (similar to the one woodland park used to have) that also house tigers along with several species of bear. There are also Bactrian Camels and White-lipped Deer in large pens in Northern Trek.
The zoo is very spread out and has lots of space for continued development. This zoo also doesnt seem quite as crowded as other zoos because of all the space. The zoo can easily be traveled in 3-4 hours.
