How to approach a Texas zoo trip?

SwampDonkey said:
I have not been, but just to be sure, there are two aquariums in SA. There is the "San Antonio Aquarium" and Sea Life San Antonio. While I have not been to either, Sea Life is probably a much better facility.

IIRC, the person that owns the San Antonio Aquarium also owns Austin Aquarium and is somehow involved in the Houston Interactive Aquarium, all rather dubious facilities. She was the wife of Ammon Covino who founded the SeaQuest aquariums and also previously owned the other City Aquariums (Portland, Boise, etc.). He went to jail for trafficking wild fish and sharks from Florida. I think that I have that all right....regardless, less than stellar conservationists.....

Sea Life is another of the Merlin owned aquariums, but is not currently AZA accredited for reasons beyond me.

If you are looking to combine something with Natural Bridge I would do Animal World Snake Farm, it is a much more respectable facility, only about 20 minutes away and back in the direction of I35.....or Sea Life San Antonio if you want something completely indoors and aquatic.
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I was referring to the literal "San Antonio Aquarium" - I didn't even realize there was a Sea Life there. Regardless, neither looks that compelling, so I'll probably just skip them unless weather's bad and I'm itching for something to do.

Honestly though, Animal World Snake Farm doesn't strike me as terribly interesting either. I can not do snakes, which obviously looks to be their biggest attraction. All of the birds and mammals are pretty much bog standard for this sort of place, so there's not much draw for me aside from checking white lions off my life list (not that I actually track color morphs, lol). I guess I'll leave it as a weak "maybe" for now.

Thanks, though! There's so many little zoos that I'm bound to have overlooked, any and all input is still greatly appreciated.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
I was referring to the literal "San Antonio Aquarium" - I didn't even realize there was a Sea Life there. Regardless, neither looks that compelling, so I'll probably just skip them unless weather's bad and I'm itching for something to do.

Honestly though, Animal World Snake Farm doesn't strike me as terribly interesting either. I can not do snakes, which obviously looks to be their biggest attraction. All of the birds and mammals are pretty much bog standard for this sort of place, so there's not much draw for me aside from checking white lions off my life list (not that I actually track color morphs, lol). I guess I'll leave it as a weak "maybe" for now.

Thanks, though! There's so many little zoos that I'm bound to have overlooked, any and all input is still greatly appreciated.
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Ah, yeah, if you are not into snakes AWSF&Z is probably not a good stop. The missions in San Antonio are worth stopping at, if you are interested in history, and of course the Alamo.\

Weather should be fine, although very hot, around that time.

*Edit, sorry, I just looked back at the thread and we went over the snake issues before :):)
 
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Looking at USDA and ZTL, both suggest that Dallas Zoo has a few interesting ungulates that I hadn't seen mentioned elsewhere - gerenuk, Somali wild ass, Speke's gazelle. The most recent USDA report is over a year old and ZTL is of course a mess still, but what's up with those species? If I had to guess, if the zoo still has them I'm thinking they might be located along the old monorail route and presently unviewable? What a shame, if so.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
Looking at USDA and ZTL, both suggest that Dallas Zoo has a few interesting ungulates that I hadn't seen mentioned elsewhere - gerenuk, Somali wild ass, Speke's gazelle. The most recent USDA report is over a year old and ZTL is of course a mess still, but what's up with those species? If I had to guess, if the zoo still has them I'm thinking they might be located along the old monorail route and presently unviewable? What a shame, if so.
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The Dallas Zoo does, indeed, still have gerenuk, Somali wild ass, and Speke's gazelle; however, that is correct in that they are all held entirely off-display in the old monorail exhibits.
 
At long last, the trip begins this Friday! I'm being kind of awful and scrambling to see how many additional facilities I might be able to cram in. A revised version of my previous itinerary:
  • Friday 6/28 - arrive in Dallas
  • Saturday 6/29 - Fort Worth Zoo
  • Sunday 6/30 - Dallas World Aquarium, travel to San Antonio for the remainder of the trip
  • Monday 7/1 - San Antonio Zoo
  • Tuesday 7/2 - Gladys Porter Zoo
  • Wednesday 7/3 - Houston Zoo
  • Thursday 7/4 - Capital of Texas Zoo, plus some combination of Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch and possibly other safari parks
  • Friday 7/5 - Dallas Zoo
  • Saturday 7/6 - leave
Might also try to see if I can cram a safari park into the Houston day. And I really need to figure out how to prioritize those safari parks. Natural Bridge seems like a very safe bet given its proximity to San Antonio and generally good reputation from what I can gather, but there's also several other explicitly less reputable places (notably Aggieland and Franklin Drive-Thru Safari) with less information available but a few highly enticing species each... is it going to be worth stomaching those grisly enclosures to potentially see a rare deer or tahr or crab-eating raccoon (assuming USDA and scattered other reports are even accurate)? I'm really not sure at this moment. EDIT: Not even 30 minutes later, I really don't think I'll be able to stomach them or justify contributing to them financially. Gotta keep my head on straight.

To recap, I'll be returning to San Antonio each night since the hotel's already paid for, which makes it look like a ton of doubling back... which there absolutely is, but it's also unavoidable unless I wanted to not stay at the hotel my wife's going to be at anyway. Too ambitious? Probably, but I've also structured it so that the higher priority facilities occur first, therefore giving me more opportunities to reschedule them in case something comes up.

Lastly, I don't intend to take comprehensive species lists or photos or anything for those popular AZA facilities, but definitely will for Capital of Texas since I haven't come across any good photos of the supposedly new and improved lion and bear enclosures. But if there's anything in particular anyone would like for me to try to photograph or confirm, please let me know!
 
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biggest_dreamer said:
At long last, the trip begins this Friday! I'm being kind of awful and scrambling to see how many additional facilities I might be able to cram in. A revised version of my previous itinerary:
  • Friday 6/28 - arrive in Dallas
  • Saturday 6/29 - Fort Worth Zoo
  • Sunday 6/30 - Dallas World Aquarium, travel to San Antonio for the remainder of the trip
  • Monday 7/1 - San Antonio Zoo
  • Tuesday 7/2 - Gladys Porter Zoo
  • Wednesday 7/3 - Houston Zoo
  • Thursday 7/4 - Capital of Texas Zoo, plus some combination of Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch and possibly other safari parks
  • Friday 7/5 - Dallas Zoo
  • Saturday 7/6 - leave
Might also try to see if I can cram a safari park into the Houston day. And I really need to figure out how to prioritize those safari parks. Natural Bridge seems like a very safe bet given its proximity to San Antonio and generally good reputation from what I can gather, but there's also several other explicitly less reputable places (notably Aggieland and Franklin Drive-Thru Safari) with less information available but a few highly enticing species each... is it going to be worth stomaching those grisly enclosures to potentially see a rare deer or tahr or crab-eating raccoon (assuming USDA and scattered other reports are even accurate)? I'm really not sure at this moment.

To recap, I'll be returning to San Antonio each night since the hotel's already paid for, which makes it look like a ton of doubling back... which there absolutely is, but it's also unavoidable unless I wanted to not stay at the hotel my wife's going to be at anyway. Too ambitious? Probably, but I've also structured it so that the higher priority facilities occur first, therefore giving me more opportunities to reschedule them in case something comes up.

Lastly, I don't intend to take comprehensive species lists or photos or anything for those popular AZA facilities, but definitely will for Capital of Texas since I haven't come across any good photos of the supposedly new and improved lion and bear enclosures. But if there's anything in particular anyone would like for me to try to photograph or confirm, please let me know!
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If you go to some of the obscure safari parks, would you mind posting species lists and/or photos? A few of these are listed as having legit rarities.

Topsey Exotic Ranch supposedly has Onager (seems they do have some sort of wild ass together with domestic donkeys from one photo online).

North Texas Safari Park has Mhorr Gazelle (from photos online) and also has Bharal listed on their USDA reports. I haven't been able to confirm that online, but that would make them possibly the only publicly opened facility in the US to hold that species.

A bunch of these parks are listed on USDA reports as holders of Barasinga, including Natural Bridge. Wonder how accurate the reports are, I could easily see them being a more common deer species. Barasinga are nearly non-existent outside of Texas but apparently doing very fine in the state if these reports are true.
 
SusScrofa said:
A bunch of these parks are listed on USDA reports as holders of Barasinga, including Natural Bridge. Wonder how accurate the reports are, I could easily see them being a more common deer species. Barasinga are nearly non-existent outside of Texas but apparently doing very fine in the state if these reports are true.
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Natural Bridge does, indeed, have barasingha. I saw them there on my visit in December 2021, and they now work with the AZA on the managed population as a Sustainability Partner. Aggieland also has barasingha.
 
SusScrofa said:
If you go to some of the obscure safari parks, would you mind posting species lists and/or photos? A few of these are listed as having legit rarities.

Topsey Exotic Ranch supposedly has Onager (seems they do have some sort of wild ass together with domestic donkeys from one photo online).

North Texas Safari Park has Mhorr Gazelle (from photos online) and also has Bharal listed on their USDA reports. I haven't been able to confirm that online, but that would make them possibly the only publicly opened facility in the US to hold that species.

A bunch of these parks are listed on USDA reports as holders of Barasinga, including Natural Bridge. Wonder how accurate the reports are, I could easily see them being a more common deer species. Barasinga are nearly non-existent outside of Texas but apparently doing very fine in the state if these reports are true.
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Topsey seems very feasible to work into my plans, and the potential onager is definitely appealing enough to catch my attention. I'm not sure how I hadn't picked up on this place yet (I mean, there's so many of these places in Texas) but I'll look into it and as long as it doesn't seem too ghastly there's a good chance I might check it out.

North Texas I was already aware of, specifically because of the supposed bharal. It would be a lot more awkward to make work, unfortunately - it's only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and closes early at 3 pm. I don't think that's really feasible given the admittedly very awkward continuous day trips format of this trip.

Will gladly consider any additional last minute safari park suggestions.

Edit: after being fairly comfortable with my schedule for the past several months, I'm now thinking that "the move" will be to do Capital of Texas on the way to Houston, freeing up Thursday for more safari parks or perhaps even Cameron Park Zoo, mainly because I've never seen gerenuk and they sure aren't getting any more common.
 
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I'm basically overhauling all of my plans with just days to spare at this point, but I realized something this afternoon that I have no idea why it didn’t click sooner. Dallas, where we’re flying into, is just 3 hours from Oklahoma City. Look at my avatar and take a stab at what my favorite animal is, and then recall the only zoo in the US to presently keep said animal.

Yeah, even my wife offered no hesitations because she knew I had to do it. She's super on board too. I should be able to fit it in without sacrificing anywhere else, since I can presumably do Dallas Zoo and DWA on the same day instead of two days like I had originally planned for (per feedback earlier in this thread), and then double back to Fort Worth on the day I had originally set aside for Dallas.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
I'm basically overhauling all of my plans with just days to spare at this point, but I realized something this afternoon that I have no idea why it didn’t click sooner. Dallas, where we’re flying into, is just 3 hours from Oklahoma City. Look at my avatar and take a stab at what my favorite animal is, and then recall the only zoo in the US to presently keep said animal.

Yeah, even my wife offered no hesitations because she knew I had to do it. She's super on board too. I should be able to fit it in without sacrificing anywhere else, since I can presumably do Dallas Zoo and DWA on the same day instead of two days like I had originally planned for (per feedback earlier in this thread), and then double back to Fort Worth on the day I had originally set aside for Dallas.
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Skip Aggieland - they don't have the crab-eating raccoons anymore, or much of anything that is not a common species that you would see in any other safari park. If you go to Oklahoma City Zoo, the raccoon dogs are now in the lakeside exhibits, at the very end of the row.
 
robbare said:
Skip Aggieland - they don't have the crab-eating raccoons anymore, or much of anything that is not a common species that you would see in any other safari park. If you go to Oklahoma City Zoo, the raccoon dogs are now in the lakeside exhibits, at the very end of the row.
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I’d pretty much dropped Aggieland from consideration already, but not having the crab-eating raccoons would sure seal it. I think I'm pretty set on Natural Bridge and perhaps Topsey being my safari park choices, but I guess who knows how that’s going to pan out with how much I’ve restructured and added plans at the last minute.

I’d seen several things suggesting that there were raccoon dogs both along the lake as well as within the larger Asia complex - are both pairs by the lake now? Good to know.

Also, I haven't been able to find a firm answer to this - does anyone know if Cameron Park's gerenuks kept with their giraffes? That's what it seems like to me, but I'd love to know for sure before I’m looking for something that might not be there next week.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
I’d pretty much dropped Aggieland from consideration already, but not having the crab-eating raccoons would sure seal it. I think I'm pretty set on Natural Bridge and perhaps Topsey being my safari park choices, but I guess who knows how that’s going to pan out with how much I’ve restructured and added plans at the last minute.

I’d seen several things suggesting that there were raccoon dogs both along the lake as well as within the larger Asia complex - are both pairs by the lake now? Good to know.

Also, I haven't been able to find a firm answer to this - does anyone know if Cameron Park's gerenuks kept with their giraffes? That's what it seems like to me, but I'd love to know for sure before I’m looking for something that might not be there next week.
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when I visited Oklahoma City, the pair of Raccoon Dogs that was in Asia had been moved to Cat Forest, the other pair was by the lake.

When I last visited Cameron Park, the Gerenuks were in the mixed species Savannah habitat, I don't believe this has changed
 
biggest_dreamer said:
I’d pretty much dropped Aggieland from consideration already, but not having the crab-eating raccoons would sure seal it. I think I'm pretty set on Natural Bridge and perhaps Topsey being my safari park choices, but I guess who knows how that’s going to pan out with how much I’ve restructured and added plans at the last minute.

I’d seen several things suggesting that there were raccoon dogs both along the lake as well as within the larger Asia complex - are both pairs by the lake now? Good to know.

Also, I haven't been able to find a firm answer to this - does anyone know if Cameron Park's gerenuks kept with their giraffes? That's what it seems like to me, but I'd love to know for sure before I’m looking for something that might not be there next week.
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One of the male raccoon dogs at OKC Zoo passed away 2 weeks ago (I was at the zoo last week and it was confirmed by their keeper), so they moved the single female to the lakeside exhibit to be with the remaining pair.

And the gerenuks at Cameron Park Zoo are indeed in the savannah yard - mixed with the giraffe, kudu, crowned cranes, and marabou storks. Don't miss the kori bustards and dik-dik that are just opposite them on the ramp leading down to the front viewing of the savanna yard.
 
robbare said:
One of the male raccoon dogs at OKC Zoo passed away 2 weeks ago (I was at the zoo last week and it was confirmed by their keeper), so they moved the single female to the lakeside exhibit to be with the remaining pair.
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Oh no, do you know what the cause was? I know they’re not young but I also didn’t think they were that old, at least compared to the ones Atlanta had. And it wasn't the leucistic one, was it? My wife would be heartbroken after how excited she got about it in particular last night.
 
It was not the leucistic one; she and the other female are still at the zoo. According to their keeper, the male that passed as quite old.
 
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