Thank all for your information, it has been really helpful, especially for the possibility of hitting up a buddy and planning a few trips down south in the state. I am incredibly lucky to live close to Lincoln Park, Brookfield and the Shedd, but I've been craving diversifying my experiences and it only hit me recently that I could stack zoos on an in-state trip.
For those local to the Chicago area, I feel it may be worth mentioning the Grove, or Kenticott Grove as it is occasionally known, in Glenview. They have an interpretive center with a number of herps on display including an Alligator snapping turtle, and at least one medicore bird kept in captivity outdoors but the visit was mid-winter so this wasn't paid as much attention. For thirty minutes plus from my home it was a lovely surprise. I don't recall anything terribly exotic.
There is one other "zoo" which has not been mentioned yet: The Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest, IL. It's a small facility comprised of a single building with various rooms mostly for herps, but also a single North American river otter. The center has some some unusual suspects like Komodo dragon and Orinoco crocodile and there are some outdoor enclosures as well that featured bobcat, coyote, arctic fox and various birds of prey.
Didn't know about this place either! I'm close enough to Lake Forest this could be an easy trip to arrange within a couple weeks and then I could come back to report. Anything closer to home is good news.
It's incredible how Komodo's are just everywhere now compared to the 1990s where they were rare.
Agreed immensely. As a kid, I thought of Komodo dragon alongside the likes of Sumatran rhino, Przwalaski's horses and Giant pandas as animals you could only find at a handful of top facilities... when I saw a Komodo dragon in Denver it felt less exciting than the Nile monitor in the next exhibit. Feels like we've come a long way there. That said, seeing a fully-grown one at the Shedd Aquarium for the first time (temporary exhibit) was still an experience that was incredibly exciting.
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum surely qualifies as a zoo, and a nice little one at that.
I visited this place several times in a small number of years which slightly put me off the place by taking away the novelty, but I don't recall any living animals there at the time besides a wonderful butterfly house - has this changed, did I miss something, or are we qualifying it as a zoo based on the butterflies? This feels like a silly question for me to be asking.
Miller Park has Mueller's Gray Gibbon, an uncommon species that is being phased out.
Peoria has Greater Spear-nosed Bats, now one of only 2(?) holders in the country. They also should have some kind of rare mole rat; I saw it signed as Mechow's, but USDA has it identified as Common Mole-Rat (Cryptomys hottentotus). I didn't see them when I visited several years ago, so I'm not sure exactly what they are.
Henson Robinson has one of the last Black Lemurs in the country, as well as Silvery and Dusky Leaf Monkeys.
Scovill has a very small but surprisingly speciose reptile house, which on my 2019 visit included Gooty Sapphire Tarantulas, an Egg-eating Snake, an African House Snake, and Red-eyed Crocodile Skink.
Some rarities that have been unfortunately lost since my visits in the mid-2010's include Blyth's Hornbill (Peoria), a genet (Miller Park), and wolverine (Henson Robinson).
Thank you for the species details, Shame about the wolverine as that is a species I am becoming more and more eager to see, but I am quite hyped on primates lately so the unique primates at many of these zoos are attractive.
All in all, they're all pretty run-of-the-mill small zoos; worth a visit if you live around the area or happen to be driving through, but most zoo aficionados wouldn't do a destination trip for them.
I did Scovill and Henson Robinson one day followed by Miller Park and Peoria another day. They are located roughly in a rectangle, with each leg being about a 50-75 minute drive. You could very easily do any 2 of them in a day; 3 might be possible if you tend to move through small zoos quickly, but I definitely wouldn't recommend trying to do all 4 in 8 or 9 hours.
I live in Chicago and have been spoiled by the Big Three. The idea of exploring all of the state facilities feels like an good way to broaden my horizons while accounting for my difficulty traveling too far, and I think I could use some small zoo experience. I've been curious about Phillips Park for a while but apparently mixed it up repeatedly with Cosley.
I did all three of these in the same day a few years ago. Cosley is really small and focuses exclusively in native species and domestics, but has an odd charm to it that makes it really pleasant. WIllowbrook Wildlife Center is a nice little rehabilitation center with a surprisingly large bald eagle aviary. While those two I found to be very enjoyable, Phillips Park is a very mediocre zoo. Nice wolf and elk exhibits, but everything else was pretty poor, especially the parrot cages and some of the enclosures in the reptile house.
Beyond the Chicago trio and the three I just mentioned, I've also been to Miller Park and Summerfield. The exhibitry at both is questionable to say the least, although there are definitely some interesting finds at both: Miller park with ringtail and lesser flamingo, and Summerfield with spotted hyena and vervet monkey.
Thank you for the details. Good to know they could be done in the same day if need be. Phillips Park sounds most intriguing to me overall for the wolf and elk exhibits. The interesting species would be enough to make one visit to the others each worth it, although Miller Park is definitely more difficult to reach.
These are nice locations, but are pretty small. So they are hard to rank.
Cosley Zoo-pretty much a small children's farm
Willowbrook Wildlife Center- local wildlife rehabilitation
You could pair Peoria Zoo and Wildlife Prairie Park they are about 25 minutes apart. (Longer summer hours would help)
Cosley Zoo and Willowbrook wildlife center are pretty close and Phillips Park Zoo is about a 1/2 hour apart from them, and you could easily see two of them in the same day.
Hope this helped a little bit, if you have any questions just ask.
This was definitely helpful, thank you! The latter three are all an hour away from where I am, while the first two are around three hours. Cosley, Willowbrook, and Phillips could be done on any weekend where someone is up to head out with me or stacked, thankfully, but Peoria and Wildlife Pairie Park being stacked would definitely be an improved, higher-value trip for me and one of my zoo buddies.
I have visited these
13 zoos in the state of Illinois (in alphabetical order):
Brookfield Zoo (Brookfield) - 2008
Cosley Zoo (Wheaton) - 2014
Henson Robinson Zoo (Springfield) - 2014
John G. Shedd Aquarium (Chicago) - 2008 and 2014
Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago) - 2008
Miller Park Zoo (Bloomington) - 2014
Niabi Zoo (Coal Valley) - 2014
Peoria Zoo (Peoria) - 2014
Phillips Park Zoo (Aurora) - 2014
Scovill Zoo (Decatur) - 2014
Summerfield Zoo (Belvidere) - 2018
Wildlife Prairie Park (Hanna City) - 2014
Willowbrook Wildlife Center (Glen Ellyn) - 2018
I have reviewed all of them on ZooChat, with 9 reviews on my
Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip thread:
Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip
On August 6th, 2014, I visited Shedd Aquarium (magnificent!), Cosley Zoo (only 5 acres) and Phillips Park Zoo (also quite small).
On August 7th, 2014, I visited National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Iowa), Niabi Zoo, Peoria Zoo and Wildlife Prairie Park. A long and exhausting day!
On August 8th, 2014, I visited Miller Park Zoo (only 5 acres), Scovill Zoo (only 14 acres), Henson Robinson Zoo (14 acres), Butterfly World (Missouri) and World Aquarium (Missouri). Another long yet exciting day.
I revisited your thread with fresh years, but it did more to whet my appetite for St. Louis, Minnesota, Hemker Park, Mantiwoc (I'm still interested in Asiatic black bears eight years later) and Racine, which I forget is so close, more than the Illinois zoos -- your reviews are always enlightening though as ever, and relevant for this, a reminder on what can be done on a road trip. Certainly makes me want to consider trying to pick up the southern zoos on a trip to St. Louis then back up!
A lot of the inspiration for this thread is the fact that doing multiple zoos in a day has almost never occurred to me up to recently. A lot of childhood trips were cut short to come straight home by certain times for certain responsibilities, and I've been spoiled by the size of Chicago's big three zoological facilities, which are all day trips.
