Went today. First visit to Indy in a while. Thoughts on the new and old.
I really like the choice to use the gardens as the entry. There were a bunch of ambassadors out and about, ranging from a tortoise in an indented exhibit to parrots on sticks to an apparently flighted crow that was being very charismatic. I didn’t go into the butterfly house today or do a full walkthrough of the gardens. Loss of the murals in the atrium was a little disappointing but I actually think the screen replacement works well.
So the entry works! What about the ICC? Well… it’s not as bad as I’d feared. Don’t get me wrong the main exhibit doesn’t really work for more than four chimps or so. But it is better planted than the concept art looked. There are also two day rooms they have access to that are each fine for maybe two to three at a time. The old lemur exhibit has been repurposed into a chimp yard that’s also good for maybe another small group. This kind of works because the chimps seem to naturally clump into small groups from past experiences together.
It’s still probably too small and I wish there was at least one decently big yard. Repurposing either the grizzly or kangaroo yards would’ve worked wonders. Ideally both, though.
The walruses are back and on exhibit. Bigger than I remembered. Absolutely massive pinnipeds. They had a set of barrel toys they were playing with and it greatly enhanced the experience. I will say for the length of the renovations they changed absolutely nothing about their on display accommodations. I assume there were more extensive changes behind the scenes. The dolphins has a lot of toys and were being super active and social when I saw them. Really elevated the experience. I can see why the public adores them so much.
It’s odd that Indy’s habit of one-off projects every year has created a patchwork of exhibits between forests / oceans and the plains that don’t really fit the biome theme. Kangaroos next to chimps next to birds next to crocodiles. Then the deserts is in there.
I have no inside information about Indy but I would not be surprised at all if Deserts gets demolished or heavily altered in the next few years. The loss of the Grand Cayman iguanas leaves the main reptile sections without anything larger and more charismatic than a blue-tongued skink or bearded dragon. The area never seems very popular. Couldn’t even talk my mom into visiting today. Yes, they recently invested in updating the snake areas. But the other main addition that year, the sloths, have already had their habitat demolished.
Uh…neither here nor there but I really like the zoo’s landscaping. The zoo feels densely planted up until the orangutan complex. Actually a little hard to see where the paths lead with all the trees. The desert dome is hidden except at the exact right angle. And then when it does open up at the orangs you get a good moment of compression-release at the zoo’s most iconic architecture.
I don’t have many notes on Flights of Fancy. Did the flamingo mingle. I strongly recommend doing it. I usually get 5+ flamingoes grooming my hair throughout the fifteen minute mingle, although my hair is unusually curly so that helps. Lory feeding opens at 10 now and I had more luck getting them to eat this morning than I ever have before at Indy. Even got a larger bird to perch on me for a few minutes and talk for a bit. He knows a few words like “Hello.” Apparently he’s a rescue. Rock hyraxes, guineafowl, and coua are also great for the Africa aviary. The cockatiel / budgie one still feels weak and I rarely bother to enter.
I do not know why the capybara is in the old Arctic fox exhibit. There is only one capy. There is no water feature. They’re social, semi-aquatic animals. Could they at least move him to the flamingo habitat? That has an pool and I imagine the capy is chill enough to let it work. I wonder if capys are the next major addition. Fits with why they randomly have one. Not sure where they’d put it, though. I think the zoo likes upcharges too much to get rid of Flights of Fancy and it’s three feeding areas and a ride. The macaques, maybe? The capys would at least use the water feature. But I adore the macaques. They always seem to be active when I visit. Kombo Koaster is an upcharge. Gibbons, maybe? They seem popular, though.
A lot of the African Plains exhibits are the same as they were in 2004. They might have been good for the time but all feel kind of small now. I wonder if they actually plan to do anything there other than maybe expand the elephants into the parking lot or replace the baboons with hamadryas or olive or something. Major space rebalancing without bringing in new species doesn’t really work with the zoo’s current development strategy, though. Hard to fill a billboard every year if there’s nothing interesting to note.
