Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo New animal species at Henry Doorly Zoo

[Brayden Delashmutt]

I wonder how many more bear species the zoo could fit in if they got rid of the event pavilion, or the sculpture garden, maybe free up some elbow room by knocking out a few bathrooms? Playgrounds and splash pads are not compromises they are amenities, a necessary part of any institution that caters towards the public, especially children. However I also mentioned there could be a multitude of reasons Omaha decided to phase out certain species. They could have made the choice to thin out diversity as a means of focusing on other species the zoo wants to upkeep. The zoos collection is still stellar, you cannot definitively say the phase-outs were entirely unnecessary and has left Omaha worse off.

I do agree, however certain areas are lacking to say the least. Compared to other zoos of comparable size like Colombus and San Diego our carnivore collection is extremely lacking - no large canids, one bear, and no leopards, jaguars, cougars, etc. I am a volunteer at the zoo, and while I have been able to get intel on reasoning for some of the phase outs most could've been easily accommodated. If Glacier Bay and the splash park didn't exist, we probably could've had a fully fledged North American area

 

[Brayden Delashmutt]

I find it extremely peculiar to criticize the fact that they happened to add in a few things in for the kiddos because. Omaha also still has an amazing collection of both common and extremely rare animals, and haven't necessarily given up on that (they started displaying yellow-spotted hyraxes for a while, for example).

I can see the sentiment behind that, but in several cases we actually weren't able to complete parts of the masterplan because of budget constraints that could've been avoided had less money been spent on visitor attractions. Still an excellent zoo with an excellent collection though

 

[Brayden Delashmutt]

Saint Louis, San Diego, Cincinatti, etc are all only a little over half our size, yet have way larger megafauna collections

 

[Tigeanderson]

Yeah, the website sucks. We NEED a website with an “animals” page.

I completely agree with you on that because like some of the animals that are in the exhibits aren’t on the website like bat eared fox and coati in the desert dome, Muntjac in Asian highlands, Kudu in the African grasslands, Duiker, Colobus monkey and a variety of birds in Hubbard gorilla valley and Okapi over by lied jungle.