Luke da zoo nerd's Nerdy review of the Minnesota zoo!

Luke da Zoo nerd

Luke da Zoo nerd

Well-Known Member
Hi guys! I know there have been a couple reviews of the Minnesota zoo already, but It is My home zoo and I would like to share my personal perspective with all of you guys! I will make posts for each exhibit. The review will be designed like a walkthrough of the zoo. I will rate thinks I like, and I don't like about each exhibit and then give it a /10 rating at the end.

My first post will probably be later today,
Best wishes, Luke
 
Review part 1: Once you enter the zoo main building you can go right, or left, or look at the habitat in front of you. The first habitat is a large enclosure for snow monkeys. One day, I counted 28 snow monkeys out! (Give or take a few). The exhibit is very spacious and nice, but the white back wall is kind of ugly. If you try not to notice that, I think the enclosure is quite adequate for the macaques. After looking at the monkeys, I suggest you go left first. When you enter through the doors you are met with a very high-ceiling room. In the center there is a large touch pool for Bat rays (might be cownose) and catsharks. This is quite a big touch pool and has plenty of room for the little one to touch the animals. The touchpool can be quite annoying with all the little kids sometimes, but its alright on non-busy days. On the left side of the habitat is probably the most magnificent of all the fish tanks. It has a large amount of species including, Sand tiger, blacktip, and claims to have whitetip reef sharks although I haven't seen any in the past couple years. The sign is most likely outdated. The large tank also has kemp's ridley's and green sea turtles. A guest favorite. Overall I think this habitat is really nice for displaying biodiversity in the coral reefs around the world. Behind the large touchpool is the largest tank in the exhibit. This previously held dolphins but they most likely passed away in 2013. Now it holds something cooler in my opinion. The Minnesota zoo claims to be the only place outside of Hawaii to have Hawaiian monk seals. A endangered species only found on Hawaii! The new animal is nice, but I have a few negative thoughts about the exhibit itself. Since the old exhibit held dolphins, I think the new habitat isn't quite adequate for the seal. For one thing, they have a very large water space, and a tiny bit of land space. The land space does not even look very much Its natural habitat. It's just concrete which isn't very nice. Now, I do understand that this habitat used to be home to dolphins but I think the zoo should have undergoed some sort of renovation by now. On the left side of the touchpool are more small aquariums displaying other species. The first one on the right has garden eels, and cardinalfish, the second has seahorses, and horshoe crabs. The next one has weedy sea dragons, hawkfish, and that's pretty much it. On the far wall, there is an exhibit for moon jellies, and an exhibit for smaller tropical reef fish and life coral. Overall, I think those habitats are solid, average small aquarium
tanks. In the center of all that, there is another touchpool, but this one is much smaller and holds cold water invertebrates like starfish and anemones. My final rating for this exhibit is 8/10.
See you next time for Tropics trail and penguins!
 
Luke da Zoo nerd said:
Review part 1: Once you enter the zoo main building you can go right, or left, or look at the habitat in front of you. The first habitat is a large enclosure for snow monkeys. One day, I counted 28 snow monkeys out! (Give or take a few). The exhibit is very spacious and nice, but the white back wall is kind of ugly. If you try not to notice that, I think the enclosure is quite adequate for the macaques. After looking at the monkeys, I suggest you go left first. When you enter through the doors you are met with a very high-ceiling room. In the center there is a large touch pool for Bat rays (might be cownose) and catsharks. This is quite a big touch pool and has plenty of room for the little one to touch the animals. The touchpool can be quite annoying with all the little kids sometimes, but its alright on non-busy days. On the left side of the habitat is probably the most magnificent of all the fish tanks. It has a large amount of species including, Sand tiger, blacktip, and claims to have whitetip reef sharks although I haven't seen any in the past couple years. The sign is most likely outdated. The large tank also has kemp's ridley's and green sea turtles. A guest favorite. Overall I think this habitat is really nice for displaying biodiversity in the coral reefs around the world. Behind the large touchpool is the largest tank in the exhibit. This previously held dolphins but they most likely passed away in 2013. Now it holds something cooler in my opinion. The Minnesota zoo claims to be the only place outside of Hawaii to have Hawaiian monk seals. A endangered species only found on Hawaii! The new animal is nice, but I have a few negative thoughts about the exhibit itself. Since the old exhibit held dolphins, I think the new habitat isn't quite adequate for the seal. For one thing, they have a very large water space, and a tiny bit of land space. The land space does not even look very much Its natural habitat. It's just concrete which isn't very nice. Now, I do understand that this habitat used to be home to dolphins but I think the zoo should have undergoed some sort of renovation by now. On the left side of the touchpool are more small aquariums displaying other species. The first one on the right has garden eels, and cardinalfish, the second has seahorses, and horshoe crabs. The next one has weedy sea dragons, hawkfish, and that's pretty much it. On the far wall, there is an exhibit for moon jellies, and an exhibit for smaller tropical reef fish and life coral. Overall, I think those habitats are solid, average small aquarium
tanks. In the center of all that, there is another touchpool, but this one is much smaller and holds cold water invertebrates like starfish and anemones. My final rating for this exhibit is 8/10.
See you next time for Tropics trail and penguins!
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I agree with most of this post. A few comments though.

1) Allie and Semo, the two Bottlenose Dolphins left at the zoo when the exhibit closed in 2012, did not die and that is not why the zoo stoped showing dolphins. Allie moved to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago and is still there as far as I am aware, while Semo moved to Six Flags in California. Semo did die in 2018, however, of old age.

2) This sort of goes with number 1, but the zoo received funding from the state legislature back in 2012 or whenever to renovate the Dolphin Pool and the plans were to bring the Dolphins back after the renovation. The pool needed updates to the cieling of the tank, etc. After funding was received, the decision was made to not bring them back for a number of reasons. @snowleopard actually sat down with Lee Ehmke, the former director of the Minnesota Zoo, and discussed the possibility of the dolphins ever returning in one of his various road trip threads (EDIT: I may be wrong about this as now I can't find it. Maybe he can tell me if I'm going nuts or not). Long story short it probably wasn't going to happen. There are only two actual zoos left in the country that still have dolphins.

3) What you see in the former dolphin exhibit is the renovations made for the monk seals. As far as I can tell all they did was put up some barriers to separate the seals from each other. I'm sure there was more involved in the renovation than that, but that is what it appears to then naked eye. I agree with you I think this is a terrible exhibit for seals, but for different reasons. I don't see much issue with the land space as seals generally only haul out on land ad not much else. They are extremely clumsy on land. For that reason, I think the amount of space is fine as they general don't move too much. I agree though it looks very unnatural and isn't great. Unfortunately, I don't think much will be done about it as all the seals are over the age of 40, I believe.

4) Finally, it is not a claim the zoo makes of them being the only ones outside of Hawaii, its a fact. They came from SeaWorld San Antonio, which was previously the only place outside of Hawaii.
 
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NSU42 said:
@snowleopard actually sat down with Lee Ehmke, the former director of the Minnesota Zoo, and discussed the possibility of the dolphins ever returning in one of his various road trip threads (EDIT: I may be wrong about this as now I can't find it. Maybe he can tell me if I'm going nuts or not). Long story short it probably wasn't going to happen. There are only two actual zoos left in the country that still have dolphins.
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This is correct, as I met up with Lee Ehmke on the 2014 road trip, and at that point there was zero chance of dolphins ever returning to Minnesota Zoo. Now that 5.5 years have gone by since that meeting, I'll predict that dolphins will never return to the zoo. I'm actually a bit surprised that Indianapolis and Brookfield still have dolphins and I would expect both of those zoos to eventually phase out the species.
 
snowleopard said:
This is correct, as I met up with Lee Ehmke on the 2014 road trip, and at that point there was zero chance of dolphins ever returning to Minnesota Zoo. Now that 5.5 years have gone by since that meeting, I'll predict that dolphins will never return to the zoo. I'm actually a bit surprised that Indianapolis and Brookfield still have dolphins and I would expect both of those zoos to eventually phase out the species.
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NSU42 said:
I agree with most of this post. A few comments though.

1) Allie and Semo, the two Bottlenose Dolphins left at the zoo when the exhibit closed in 2012, did not die and that is not why the zoo stoped showing dolphins. Allie moved to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago and is still there as far as I am aware, while Semo moved to Six Flags in California. Semo did die in 2018, however, of old age.

2) This sort of goes with number 1, but the zoo received funding from the state legislature back in 2012 or whenever to renovate the Dolphin Pool and the plans were to bring the Dolphins back after the renovation. The pool needed updates to the cieling of the tank, etc. After funding was received, the decision was made to not bring them back for a number of reasons. @snowleopard actually sat down with Lee Ehmke, the former director of the Minnesota Zoo, and discussed the possibility of the dolphins ever returning in one of his various road trip threads (EDIT: I may be wrong about this as now I can't find it. Maybe he can tell me if I'm going nuts or not). Long story short it probably wasn't going to happen. There are only two actual zoos left in the country that still have dolphins.

3) What you see in the former dolphin exhibit is the renovations made for the monk seals. As far as I can tell all they did was put up some barriers to separate the seals from each other. I'm sure there was more involved in the renovation than that, but that is what it appears to then naked eye. I agree with you I think this is a terrible exhibit for seals, but for different reasons. I don't see much issue with the land space as seals generally only haul out on land ad not much else. They are extremely clumsy on land. For that reason, I think the amount of space is fine as they general don't move too much. I agree though it looks very unnatural and isn't great. Unfortunately, I don't think much will be done about it as all the seals are over the age of 40, I believe.

4) Finally, it is not a claim the zoo makes of them being the only ones outside of Hawaii, its a fact. They came from SeaWorld San Antonio, which was previously the only place outside of Hawaii.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot for this information! You helped me quite a bit!
 
snowleopard said:
I'm actually a bit surprised that Indianapolis and Brookfield still have dolphins and I would expect both of those zoos to eventually phase out the species.
Click to expand...

Me too. I think Brookfield will get rid of them before Indianapolis. I just visited Indianapolis this summer and their program seems to still be going strong overall. Coupled with the fact they have one of the better exhibits I've seen for them they seem to be further off than Brookfield. Brookfields facility I think is worst than MNs and there show is pretty bad in comparison to Indy's.
 
NSU42 said:
1) Allie and Semo, the two Bottlenose Dolphins left at the zoo when the exhibit closed in 2012, did not die and that is not why the zoo stoped showing dolphins. Allie moved to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago and is still there as far as I am aware, while Semo moved to Six Flags in California. Semo did die in 2018, however, of old age.
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I would Just like you to know that the information of them passing away was not my own. In fact, it actually was a zookeeper I asked a few years ago. He looked pretty young and I don't think he really knew what happened to the dolphins. I believe your side of course!:)
 
NSU42 said:
Finally, it is not a claim the zoo makes of them being the only ones outside of Hawaii, its a fact. They came from SeaWorld San Antonio, which was previously the only place outside of Hawaii.
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The zoo website claims to be the only place out of Hawaii you can see them. The claim, Is wrong, then.
 
Luke da Zoo nerd said:
I would Just like you to know that the information of them passing away was not my own. In fact, it actually was a zookeeper I asked a few years ago. He looked pretty young and I don't think he really knew what happened to the dolphins. I believe your side of course!:)
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Your all good, I'm just giving you some information you did not seem to have. I visited Brookfield in the fall of 2016 and Allie was still alive and kicking at that time.

Also, direct from the zoos website, "The current group of Hawaiian monk seals arrived at the Minnesota Zoo in 2015 and the Zoo is the only place outside of Hawaii where the general public can see these animals in in person." The link below is one place on the website I can find that mentions them being the only ones outside of Hawaii. I don't see it on there animal information page anywhere in the animal database.

Again, its not a big deal. You are going off of what you know, I'm just giving you more information. That is what forums are for.

Critically Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals Receive Eye Surgery to Restore Sight at the Minnesota Zoo - Minnesota Zoo
 
NSU42 said:
Your all good, I'm just giving you some information you did not seem to have. I visited Brookfield in the fall of 2016 and Allie was still alive and kicking at that time.

Also, direct from the zoos website, "The current group of Hawaiian monk seals arrived at the Minnesota Zoo in 2015 and the Zoo is the only place outside of Hawaii where the general public can see these animals in in person." The link below is one place on the website I can find that mentions them being the only ones outside of Hawaii. I don't see it on there animal information page anywhere in the animal database.

Again, its not a big deal. You are going off of what you know, I'm just giving you more information. That is what forums are for.

Critically Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals Receive Eye Surgery to Restore Sight at the Minnesota Zoo - Minnesota Zoo
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:)

Here's a very unrelated question: I heard somewhere that the Minnesota Zoo had greater slow lorises In their collection. I am assuming they are off-show or were they on show previously. I would be interested in seeing them since there kind I don't think is displayed publicly anywhere in the U.S.
 
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Luke da Zoo nerd said:
Here's a very unrelated question: I heard somewhere that the Minnesota Zoo had greater slow lorises In their collection. I am assuming they are off-show or were they on show previously. I would be interested in seeing them since there kind I don't think is displayed publicly anywhere in the U.S.
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Where did you hear this? I know they had Pygmy Slow Loris in the past, is that what you were thinking of?
 
Luke da Zoo nerd said:
Here's a very unrelated question: I heard somewhere that the Minnesota Zoo had greater slow lorises In their collection. I am assuming they are off-show or were they on show previously. I would be interested in seeing them since there kind I don't think is displayed publicly anywhere in the U.S.
Click to expand...
The zoo exhibited Greater (=Sunda) Slow Loris in the nocturnal hall of the Tropics Trail until the exhibits in this hall were boarded up around 2009. They also exhibited Pygmy Slow Loris. At the time the nocturnal hall closed, Sunda Slow Loris were in the first exhibit and Pygmy Slow Loris were in the second from last exhibit. After the nocturnal hall closed the zoo still kept Sunda Slow Loris behind the scenes as education/zoomobile animals, but I believe they stopped keeping them around 2017.
 
Gondwana said:
The zoo exhibited Greater (=Sunda) Slow Loris in the nocturnal hall of the Tropics Trail until the exhibits in this hall were boarded up around 2009. They also exhibited Pygmy Slow Loris. At the time the nocturnal hall closed, Sunda Slow Loris were in the first exhibit and Pygmy Slow Loris were in the second from last exhibit. After the nocturnal hall closed the zoo still kept Sunda Slow Loris behind the scenes as education/zoomobile animals, but I believe they stopped keeping them around 2017.
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Thanks.
 
Time for part 2! After you exit discovery bay, you are met with a hallway with a gift shop, food stands, and other recreational places. Along the left side of the hallway there is many other viewing opportunities for the snow monkeys. A little ways down the hallway is a tiny exhibit called Penguins Of the African Coast. It is a classic looking penguin exhibit and I really don't have any complaints. I would Like to say that the Minnesota does have a very good breeding program for these penguins though. At the very end of the hallway you are met with a ramp leading up to Minnesota trails and Tropics trails, or a very good food court. It has some really good food choices there (I am a fan of Mix'd o greens and Erbert's and Gerbert's). Up the ramp you go and sounds of birds and gibbons fill the air. You can go left to Minnesota trails or go right to Tropic's trails. I recommend going right first so that is what were going to do. Currently right now the birds are off exhibit because they are doing some construction. The first habitat is on your left and it is a pretty nice habitat for Radiated tortoises. In the habitat are signs labeling species of previously extinct Malagasy species. On your right is a lively habitat for Ring tailed lemurs. Red ruffed lemurs were previously kept here I think. The habitat is fgood, and there are a few terrariums next to it displaying Hissing cockroaches, Henkel's leaf toed gecko, and tomato frogs. From what I have heard they previously kept Tenrecs somewhere in this Madagascar themed section of the jungle as well. The next section is Africa, and on your right are 2 habitats for A lively troop of Straw colored fruit bats, (A nice exhibit) and Another habitat for African dwarf crocodiles and African cichlids. The land space for the crocs is in my opinion, a little small. The crocodiles seem to be ok with it though. If you turn left a little bit and look straight in front of you is a marvelous overlook at a multi species exhibit for Debrazza's monkeys, Black-and-white Colobuses, and Red river hogs. The habitat itself is stunning with plenty of land space for the hogs, and tree space for the monkeys. They are also doing a pretty good job breeding the Debrazza's monkeys. That is the end of the Africa section and turning left you are met with the largest section. Asia. The habitat on your right is an netted enclosure for Bali myna's Some unnamed bird species and Indian star tortoises. The habitat is ok. On your left is a sandy habitat for a single Komodo Dragon. It is a sandy habitat with plenty of heated rocks. The habitat looks kinda bland for a jungle exhibit but I'd say the size of the exhibit is alright. Continue down the path you are met with the very loud Gibbon habitat. This habitat is also home to many species of waterbirds which I am not going to try and name. The white handed gibbons are a pair. (Male and female). The enclosure uses quite a bit of mock rock but I don't mind it that much. They have some climbing material but not as extravagant as some climbing material I have seen. Once you reach the end of the Gibbon enclosure you will find 2 habitats. One for Indonesian freshwater fish, and one pit looking down onto a family of Asian small-clawed otters. I have a couple complaints for the otter enclosure though. The otters have almost zero water space. Which is making them not as active as I have usually seen. 80% of the time they are sleeping. The habitat isn't even that big though. At the time of me typing this I have to go soon so bye!
 
I talked to the keeper and she said Late fall. Well, It's past that and right now it doesn't look like it's gonna be done soon.
 
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