(Disclaimer: The following post is not a review in the traditional sense and has a major positive bias. There may be some critiques here and there, but it mostly consists of my opinions from my visit to this zoo. Think of this recap series as a “highlight reel” rather than a review, OK? Good!)
Alright, I’m back! Sorry for the hold-up, I’ve been busy with life stuff and I also got stuck in several places while writing this monster. But it's done now, and that’s what matters, right? Let’s get this recap properly started with the first Ohioan zoo my mother and I visited, the…
Cincinnati Zoo
Animals Drawn
- Fiona (Hippopotamus)
- Walter (Warthog, RIP)
- Lucy (Binturong, RIP)
- John (Lion)
- Schottzie (Asian Elephant)
- Ndume (Gorilla, wasn’t at the zoo at the time)
- Hudo (Komodo Dragon)
- Moe (Sloth)
After delivering the drawings to the folks at guest services, our first stop was the
Elephant Reserve, because Wildlife Canyon/Roo Valley was under renovation. Even though we were planning to go around the zoo clockwise, it's not often that you get to see elephants as the first animals at a zoo. And oh boy, am I glad we went to see them first! The “cow yard” was being renovated, so we had to go inside the elephant house to see our first animals: Schottzie and Mai-Thai! We then went to the “bull yard”, where we were greeted with quite the sight, to say the least…
There, before our very eyes, was Sabu mounting Jati right in front of a crowd of very young, very confused children (and me and my mother). Needless to say, I was shooketh. I even said something like, “Sabu! There’s kids watching you! Stop!” Now, I know some people on this website don’t like it when people draw attention to mating animals, but I think my reaction was justified for two reasons:
- These were elephants. Anything they do draws attention.
- These elephants were literally the first animals we ever saw on this trip. If this was how our adventure started, then we knew it was going to be a special one.
Needless to say, our visit started off with a “bang” (haha, comedy). After bidding the Elephant Reserve adieu, we made our way to the zoo’s other historical landmark habitat: the
Reptile House. Admittedly, I wasn’t too fond of the Reptile House. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it didn’t “wow” me, either. It wasn’t one of the worst reptile houses ever, just one of the reptile houses ever. I don’t remember too much about it, save for the weirdly cramped Chinese Alligator habitat, so we’ll move on.
I have a confession to make: I didn’t see every exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. My mother and I tried to see everything, but there were three main areas that we missed.
- Eagle Eyrie (because I thought it was closed like Wildlife Canyon)
- Wolf Woods (because it was so out-of-the-way compared to everything else)
- World of the Insect (which I sorely regret after seeing a proper tour of it…)
Our next big highlight was the (in)famous
Gorilla World, where I saw my first gorillas of 2019! I had been to Brookfield and Woodland Park prior to this, but the gorillas were off-display at both zoos when I visited. However, I spent most of my time at the outdoor gorilla exhibit examining the moat to see where things went wrong with a certain incident (that had loads of memes that made me irrationally angry when they were new). I think this is where I started a new behavior whenever I see gorillas at a zoo: the “Respect Gesture” (two thumps on the chest with the dominant hand, then extending said hand while flashing a peace sign and saying “respect”). I think I did it as a way to show the gorillas that we meant no harm following the “incident”. Is it kind of silly? Sure, but it’s become a tradition every time I see gorillas at a zoo. At the indoor gorilla habitat, we saw young gorillas Mondika and Elle play-fighting, and it was adorable! I think that moment right there cemented gorillas as my second-favorite animals after basically disowning them during the age of Harambe memes (sometimes I look back on my high school self and cringe).
The next stop on our visit was the one I was looking forward to the most: Night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, na-na-na-na-night!
Night Hunters! Look, I am fully aware that Night Hunters isn’t the most well-liked exhibit at Cincinnati, but I am a sucker for nocturnal exhibits and I had fond memories of watching the zoo’s walk through video of it when I was 10. Still, without the Fossa, Loris, Tayra, or Civet, did Night Hunters live up to my expectations?
Of course it did! Right off the bat (pardon the pun), I noticed the cool blue lighting compared to the red of most other nocturnal exhibits (including those in Jungle Trails). I know red light is preferable and all that, but it also makes the animals look like they’re in an oven. The blue light felt more natural, at least to me. Night Hunters also marked the first three lifers of the trip:
Aardwolf,
Potto, and
Large-Spotted Genet. Unfortunately, the aardvarks were off-display that day, as their habitat was being cleaned (which also meant no Flying Foxes or Greater Galago, either), but the Aardwolves more than made up for it by just existing. Why, I loved Night Hunters so much that my mother and I went back for a second helping on our way out!
Cat Canyon was next, and it was solid. Not much happened there, unfortunately, aside from me learning about anti-bird-collision glass.
Dragons! and
Lemur Lookout were similarly competent-yet-uneventful, but after a quick lunch break and a brief meeting with Grover the Tawny Frogmouth, the “wow” train was up and rolling again!
Manatee Springs, what an exhibit! How many zoos have an exhibit themed around a completely different state than the one they’re based in? Not many, I assume. Anyways, while I was impressed by the wide variety of reptiles, amphibians, and fish within the complex, the manatees stole the show (obviously)! They’re just so… calming to watch compared to other, higher-energy marine mammals (but they’re still equally amazing). I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when I learned that the zoo sometimes hosted sleepovers in Manatee Springs. I could totally fall asleep in there if I really wanted to, but sleeping was for the hotel in Columbus. There was still much to see!
Rhino Reserve was an alright horseshoe of African wildlife, although I could see why the zoo is planning to renovate it in the near future. My mother was enthralled by the (now deceased) Indian Rhino, however.
Siegfried & Roy’s White Lions were a total snoozefest, and
Kroger Lords of the Arctic was hideous, to put it politely.
Jungle Trails, on the other hand, was a different story: orangutans and bonobos may be the big names there, but this place was lemur heaven! Not only did I see my fourth lifer of the trip, the
Gray Bamboo Lemur (or a Gray Bamboo Lemur’s butt, to be more accurate), but I also saw my two favorite lemur species: the Coquerel’s Sifaka (I was practically raised on Zoboomafoo), and the Aye-Aye (once again, I love dark exhibits).
We spent most of our time at
Birds of the World futilely searching for Keas, unaware that they were a winter-only species kept in the outdoor aviary (whoops). I did get a chuckle out of the zoo’s naming scheme for their King Penguins, though. If they ever somehow hatch another chick, they better name it “Dedede” or I’m gonna riot.
We spent more time at the
Spaulding Children’s Zoo than I imagine most zoochatters would spend. Admittedly, most of that time was spent admiring the fifth lifer of the trip: the
Tamandua (yes, it took me until 2019 to see one). One of the funniest moments of the whole trip occurred here, too: In the first room of the Animal Ambassador Center, a keeper was digging around in a huge pile of dirt and animal bedding for… something. Said something was putting up quite the fight, as it took the keeper a good 2 or 3 minutes to pull it out, and revealed itself to be another Tamandua!
However, seeing these Tamanduas came with a price: the smell. Oh jeez, it was like the odor of a sharpie marker with the potency of skunk spray. As we passed the Gibbon Islands and Red Pandas, I was desperately trying to snort the Tamandua musk out of my nose.
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for (I think):
Africa! I’ve got some feelings about this area, and not all of them are positive, unfortunately. Taking off the rose-tinted glasses for a bit, Africa was just so… ordinary. For starters, it has the single laziest name I’ve ever heard for an African exhibit, even with multiple “African Savannas” or “African Adventure Africas” existing. Secondly, the collection wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly exciting, either. It felt like a checklist of savanna animals (or “savvanimals”) that kids and parents could easily recognize: cheetahs, meerkats, lions, giraffes, hippos, ostriches, etc. There weren’t any aviaries for smaller African birds, no reptiles of any kind, and the only small mammals were those meerkats that everyone without a Zoochat account loves.
Of course, I can’t mention Africa at the Cincinnati Zoo without dedicating a section to Hippo Cove. While I enjoyed Hippo Cove back in 2019 (hippos are my favorite animal, after all), in hindsight, it wasn’t all that great. I love underwater viewing as much as the next guy, but when it's the only viewing option for the most famous individual zoo animal in the country, it can get a little frustrating to work with. Seriously, Fiona and Bibi were off to the right of their pool and there was a whole swarm of people clamoring to see them. An alternate viewing point would’ve been nice to have. Also, aren’t hippos the third-largest land mammals? If that’s the case, why do these large mammals have only a third of the land they should normally have? In retrospect, Hippo Cove felt like an incomplete habitat. The underwater viewing is nice and all, but where’s the land viewing? The indoor viewing? The space?
Ok, that was a bit of a bummer, but we’re almost there! Time to put the nostalgia goggles back one more time (for now) as I talk about the final area my mother and I visited: the
P&G Discovery Forest! Not much happened here, to be completely honest, but the one noteworthy animal we did see was none other than Moe the two-toed sloth! Most of the time, when I see a sloth at a zoo, they’re usually curled up in a basket or on a branch facing away from me. Moe was moving! My mother got a video of him doing a dance of sorts, which is the most action I had ever seen from a sloth! After that, it was a quick trip to the gift shop, one more hasty return to Fiona and Bibi, and we were back on the road!
Recap
- New species seen: Aardwolf, Potto, Large-Spotted Genet, Gray Bamboo Lemur, Tamandua
- Favorite Exhibits: Night Hunters, Manatee Springs, Jungle Trails
- Least Favorite Exhibits: Kroger Lords of the Arctic, White Lions, Lemur Lookout
- Final Verdict: An excellent start to the grand tour of Ohio, although a second visit is definitely in order to see Roo Valley+the exhibits we missed.
Next time, I’ll be recapping my visit to the Columbus Zoo. See you whenever that’s done!
