I have returned from the trip, which was excellent.
A few cool things I did besides zoos and aquariums included kayaking in the Monterey Bay where I saw tons of sea lions along with some sea otters, hiked in Yosemite including doing the Panorama Trail, hiked in Point Reyes where I saw the elk, and went to the brewpubs for Russian River Brewery and Marin Brewing Company.
As far as zoos:
LA Zoo:
This was my first visit since the new elephant and reptile exhibits opened. The elephant exhibit looked nice, but I honestly have enjoyed my visits to EO more in regards to viewing elephants. I know, blasphemy right! Better views and more elephants at EO.
LAIR is very well done for the most part with the tanks set in the dirt/rock walls and some nice floor to ceiling and spacious exhibits. However, there are some pretty standard looking tanks in there and reptile houses aren't really my favorite. If I were going to a zoo for reptiles, I still may choose the major zoo to the south over LA.
Otherwise, I don't have much to add other than despite what some on here say, the roundhouse exhibits with a few exceptions are average to very good for their inhabitants and aren't bad at all in terms of viewing.
Santa Ana Zoo:
The Pampas exhibit is very good, but it would have been much better if there were more to it than just 2 exhibits. The single Amazon exhibit by the front is quite nice. The walk-through aviary has the potential to be really good as it's spacious and very lush, but there aren't enough birds in it imo. Otherwise, there's lots of monkey cages, most of which are mediocre at best.
The Living Desert:
This is a themed zoo as it does not stray at all from it's name. It has beautiful grounds featuring many themed desert gardens and plenty of wild lizards, hummingbirds, and other animals. There's also mountains in the background. The exhibits are mostly very well done and stay true to the desert biome and only feature animals that live in deserts. That's not as limiting as one might expect as many species do in some cases live in deserts; some examples include giraffe, African leopard, jaguar, cheetah, mountain lion, bobcat, various hoofstock, hyena, wild dogs, etc.
Most of the exhibits were quite spacious, well landscaped, and had good to great viewing. I really liked the Eagle Canyon area that featured very good exhibits for various animals including mountain lion, bobcat, ringtail, badger, serval, swift fox, Mexican grey wolf, and peccary. Another highlight was the bighorn sheep exhibit, which was basically a fenced off mountain that had a many sheep residing on it. Most of the African exhibits were also good to very good, but the highlight for me was the giraffe/ostrich/forgotten species of hoofstock exhibit, which was spacious, nicely sloped, and had very nice viewing that included a mountain in the background.
The only negative other than the limited species and biome was that there are a few small cages for some of the small cats and other species.
This is a really good zoo for what it is, but it may be hard to rank it really high due to what it understandably limits itself as.
San Diego Zoo Safari Park:
The only new things here are the decent fruit bat exhibit, the expanded elephant exhibit, and the cheetah run being free to visitors. All good additions. This is a great place to spend a day.
San Diego Zoo:
The Panda Trek is new and much better than the former area, if only because it prevents the awful line to view the pandas. However, the red panda exhibit is really good, the Mang Mountain Viper exhibit is very nice, and the takin exhibit is solid and it's nice to see them with animals from the same region. So I think this is a pretty big net gain for the zoo.
The new N. Chinese leopard is exhibit smaller than it should be, but it makes good use of it's space and has good viewing.
The additions to Polar Rim are very good from educational and child friendly perspectives. It was also cool to see the addition of the maned wolf nearby.
I had a great time viewing the young brown bears and amur leopards as they were very playful.
I will continue to be an EO defender as it is a good complex to walk through. There's lots of great animals to see, the viewing is good to great, most of the animals have good to great enclosures, I like the concept/signage/ statues and there's nice extras like seeing the keepers work with the elephants at their care center, watching the lions being fed through the mesh, the animal contact yard, the grill has good food and a great view, etc. There are plenty of criticisms I have of it, but it's better imo than many on here give it credit for.
Lastly, the prices of the zoo and park have gone up quite a bit over the past few years. $42 is pretty steep!
Oakland Zoo:
The initial impression this zoo delivers via it's children's zoo is a very strong one. The section has plenty of elements for kids, but has some very good exhibits as well with the river otter, lemur, alligator, fruit bat, and reptile exhibits coming to mind.
Some other highlights include a terrific sun bear exhibit, very nice gibbon and siamang islands, a nice baboon exhibit, and a large natural area for the bison and tule elk if you take the air tram to see them.
There are also good exhibits for tigers, lions, meerkats, and some monkeys. The giraffe and elephant exhibits are solid as are most of the other exhibits I haven't mentioned.
My complaints would be the zoo isn't that big and doesn't have a great collection, plus it doesn't really have strong themed exhibit complexes like most zoos do. It's a bit disjointed in that regard. Still a very solid zoo.
Monterey Bay Aquarium and the California Academy of Sciences to come.
