New England Zoo Trip

[blospz]

My husband and I will be attending a wedding in the New England area this upcoming weekend. We will be attending some zoos while we are in the area:

• Roger Williams Park Zoo
• Capron Park Zoo
• Franklin Park Zoo
• Stone Zoo

I have heard that Southwick's Zoo is the best one in the NE area, but due to location and costs, we're opting out of it. I'll be sure to write a review for each zoo in this thread!

 

[blospz]

Roger Williams Park Zoo

African Section

The zoo begins with a dusty exhibit on your right that houses zebra, watusi, and wildebeest. There are trees to provide shade in the back of the exhibit and there's plenty of room for all three animal species. Up next is the cheetah yard that has two rock formations for the cheetahs to climb and rest on. The exhibit seems quite spacious compared to other compacted cheetah exhibits I have seen at other zoos. Across the way is a greenhouse building that houses monkeys, sloths, and flamingos. The aoudad exhibit was a treat for me as I do not believe I have ever seen these animals before. They have a rocky hill with a small waterfall running down the middle of it. Up next are decent sized exhibits for the red river hog and African crowned crane. The African elephant exhibit seemed decent in size, with shading structures and a nice big pool for their three females. Their barn could use a renovation in terms of size for its inhabitants, which also houses their giraffes. The giraffe exhibit was a basic, circular exhibit, with a feeding station. The geriatric giraffe, Amber, is kept inside the barn, as she has gone almost completely blind.

Misc. Exhibits

The harbor seal exhibit is quite outdated with only a small window to view them underwater. When you climb the hill to see them for above, you're not seeing much there either. There is a basic farm area with a contact goat yard. One of the zoos older buildings, now used as an administration building, is a beautiful sight to see when you're in this area. Up the hill is the construction of the rainforest building, expected to open in Spring 2018. It is supposed to house monkeys, piranha, giant otter, toucans, parrots, tree frogs, tamandua, giant anteaters and more. This additional will definitely enhance the zoo, especially in the cooler months of the year.

A World of Adaptations

Right before you enter the main building in this section, there is a small yard for radiated tortoises. Inside the building, there are exhibits for the komodo dragon and Matschie's tree kangaroo. The tree kangaroo mother and offspring have finally been separated, they had a longer period of time together than what is normal in the species. Soon the zoo will get a male from I believe the Riverbanks Zoo. The offspring will be on exhibit as the two adults get to know each other behind the scenes. The komodo dragon is a female who came to the zoo in the past couple of years. The building also houses some birds, such as hornbills, and reptiles. The outside exhibits consist of yards for the wallaby, river otters, binturong, babirusa, and a walk through aviary for the king vulture (mesh separates their exhibit from guest area). The wallaby have a basic, dusty paddock, the river otters has a cramped, outdated exhibit, binturong have a climbing structure, and the babirusa have a basic exhibit. The gibbons are not too far off from this section and they have a little bit of a small exhibit, but plenty of climbing opportunities.

Marco Polo Trail

There is an interactive area at the entrance, a ship guest can go into to show Marco Polo's journey. The camel exhibit is a basic dusty paddock. The moon bear have a very nice exhibit, the best I have seen for this bear species, with viewing windows at the top and bottom of the exhibit. They also have a nice pool to bath in and partial underwater viewing for guests. The only odd thing about this exhibit is the jagged rocks in the design. There is an exhibit for red crowned cranes that I cannot recall how it looked. Near them is a decent size exhibit for red panda that have more vertical space with a climbing structure and a couple of trees. The snow leopards have a decent exhibit and the takin have an exhibit on a layered hill.

North America

This area first starts off with exhibits for the alligator, porcupine, and a snake den. They also have exhibits for pronghorn and wild turkey, bald eagle, red wolf, tortoise, and bison (last exhibit closed off as it was on the trail for the jack o latern event starting that evening). I was not too impressed with the red wolf exhibit and it was very hard to photograph as there's mesh fencing all around it.

This zoo is definitely one of the best AZA zoos in the New England area. I hope to visit it in the future when they open the rainforest building.

 

[blospz]

Capron Park Zoo

This is a very small AZA accredited zoo that could take 20-30 minutes to explore. I imagine for local families with small children it is a nice zoo to visit and they can visit the rest of the park as well. When you enter the zoo there is a spacious yard for red and gray kangaroos and an emu. I then went to the area with an outdated river otter exhibit and a building that houses a water monitor and lemurs. The lemurs had a better outdoor exhibit, but both were not great. I believe this building also had exhibits for serval, meerkat, and another animal species. The next exhibit I saw were for their white lions. It was quite small with barely any natural substrate. Next door was a small exhibit for a sloth bear, but had a nice climbing structure in the middle. The female, Vicky, came from Brookfield Zoo, and her recent exhibit is a downgrade from what she had before and her brother now at the Philadelphia Zoo, walking in tall grass, got the better end of the bargain. Across the way is a small, but decently furnished exhibit for the Amur leopard, and an intimate exhibit with climbing structures for two juvenile red pandas. Next door are nice exhibits the Visayan warty pig and the red crowned crane. The small nocturnal building had exhibits for the night monkey, six banded armadillo, and some other small mammals that I am forgetting at the moment. The zoo also had a yard for alpaca and goats. The last exhibit was a pond with a bridge in the middle with small islands on each side, one for red ruffed lemurs, the other for black and white lemurs. The one exhibit that was closed was the rainforest building. I do not remember even seeing the exterior of this building so I imagine it is on the smaller side.

This is definitely not a zoo to go out of your way to see. However, if you are in the area and have a zoo membership that offers 100% reciprocal to this zoo, it's worth seeing for some of the animals in its collection.

 

[blospz]

Franklin Park Zoo

I remember reading reviews about this zoo and how it is not impressive. I do admit the zoo has unoriginal or outdated exhibits and I hardly look at any of them and think, this was designed in the past decade. Perhaps the only one I could think would be designed recently was the children's area, however, the exhibit designs missed the mark for some of its inhabitants. Despite all that, I did enjoy the animal collection at the zoo and felt it was mostly photo friendly for visitors.

Tropical Forest

Before entering the building, there are nice exhibits for the spotted hyena and Siberian crane. I went into the back entrance that starts with the gorilla exhibit. The gorilla exhibit is very similar to the all indoor gorilla exhibit at the Buffalo Zoo. However, I felt this one had more vertical space for its inhabitants. On the other side of the trail are exhibits for the ring tailed lemur and the ocelot. The ocelot had a decent sized exhibit, but if we're talking about indoor ocelot exhibits, I believe the Buffalo Zoo has a nice one, offering more vertical space. Up next was a nice sized exhibit for the capybara and an exhibit for the pygmy hippo and Ruppell's vulture. The hippo's pool was in the front of the exhibit and actually if you go around the corner, there is a theater area where you could view them underwater. This area was popular as it had its corpse plant, Fester, on display as it's about to go into bloom. This area also had small exhibits for the tamarin and pygmy falcon. Up next was a section for snakes and a nocturnal exhibit for the potto. The area around the corner had exhibits for the saddle billed stork, giant anteater and painted stork, and Baird's tapir. The giant anteater had a decent exhibit, but I feel like the Cleveland and Buffalo Zoo exhibits for the species are better than this one. The Baird's tapir exhibit was decent in size, but hard to evaluate the actual land area as the pool was drained. The two tapirs were outside, and they have a nice grassy paddock with a shading structure and small pool. The only flaw, for visitors anyway, is that the exhibit is on a hill and the door to their holding area is on the bottom part. This meant that the tapirs like to hide near the door and you have to be at a certain angle just to see them. Most visitors walked by not knowing that they were even there. The final exhibits on one side were for bats, crocodile, and a nice sized exhibit for the sloth. The final exhibit was originally for mandrills, but now houses a female De Brazza's monkey. She will get a mate in the next couple of months.

Bird's World

I absolutely adored the old architecture of this building. However, it's a bit deceiving as I expected it to be bigger on the inside. The inside was separated into areas such as swamp, scrubland, rainforest, riverbank, and mountainside. The outside had exhibits for the kea, great hornbill, flamingo, and walk through aviary of the Andean condor. The area also had a seasonal walk through budgee aviary and cages for Australian birds like different species of cockatoo and tawny frogmouth. There was also a nice indoor nocturnal exhibit for the kiwi.

Outback Trail

This walk through area for red kangaroo was a bit odd. The inhabitants had a nice space to roam, but it had a mesh barrier separating them from the visitor pathway. I feel at one point this section was completely open for the animal inhabitants to roam. Behind the kangaroo exhibit was the emu exhibit.

Giraffe Savannah & Serengeti Crossing

I thought the giraffe paddock was quite spacious and had a good amount of trees for shade and browse. The zoo currently had two female giraffes, a mother and daughter pair. Serengeti Crossing had a large paddock for zebra, ostrich, and wildebeest. The back area had trees for shade. In terms of look, it was quite plain. This area also had exhibits for the warthog and African crested porcupine.

Kalahari Kingdom/Tiger Trail

The area starts with an exhibit for African lion and Bengal tiger. The Bengal tiger exhibit was decent in size, but once again, quite basic in look. The African lion had a grassy grotto, but was updated with windows around the side and back of it. It also featured a truck, with its front end in the actual exhibit. Kalahari Kingdom had a nice spacious exhibits for their bongos, the male in its own paddock behind the main one, and a grassy yard for kori bustard. On the side of the kori bustards was a yard for camels.

Children's Zoo

The red panda exhibit design was such a miss! There are two windows that you can view the red pandas, but there was on in the back that would be great for viewing, but blocked off for visitors. The exhibit was a small grassy yard with a climbing structure in the middle. This children's zoo also features a marsh walk through aviary, some turtle exhibits, and one for black prairie dogs. There area also has a small playground in it.

Franklin Farm

A common farm area with cow, chickens, barn owl (meshed area at the top of the barn), goat, guinea hog, poitou donkey, and sheep.

For a basic zoo visitor, I believe this zoo will satisfy their needs. For zoo enthusiasts that like to focus on exhibit design, this is not going to a zoo on the top of your list. I am curious if they zoo has any plans to update in the near future.

 

[blospz]

Stone Zoo

What a surprising little gem! In terms of exhibit design, I feel this zoo outshines Franklin Park Zoo.

Yukon Creek

This area starts with a decent exhibit for two rescued black bears. I believe it could be more spacious for them though, as one was pacing back and forth. The other exhibits for Arctic fox, bald eagle, Canada lynx, porcupine, and reindeer were a bit outdated, but not horrible.

Treasures of the Sierra Madre

This area seemed to be be the most modern and immersive sections of the zoo. They had exhibits for roadrunner, Chacoan peccary, coati, cougar, and jaguar. The jaguar was in a mine themed exhibit. It was a nice collection of South American animals.

Windows to the Wild

I thought this was going to be a building with exhibits on the inside, but you were still outside with a roofed walkway looking into slanted windows. All the exhibits were kind of sparse, with tropical paintings on the back walls. Exhibits consisted of sloth and elegant crested tinamou, cotton top tamarin, Matschie's tree kangaroo, Hyacinth macaw, hyrax, meerkat, rhinoceros hornbill, prehensile tailed porcupine, inca tern, and an outdoor exhibit for Caribbean flamingo.

Animal DIscovery Center

Terrariums for different amphibians and reptiles.

Treetops and Riverbanks

There were decent exhibits for colobus monkeys and white cheeked gibbons. I am beginning to think New England Zoo just does not know how to house river otters and this design was probably the most cramped and outdated.

Barnyard

An area you would miss if you blinked your eyes. It housed zebu, chickens, goat, and guinea hog.

Himalayan Highlands

This was my favorite section of the zoo. None of them were new exhibits, but the original designs have uphold throughout the years and are great for its inhabitants. However, the biggest miss was for the yak, who has a very small fenced barn yard. The markhor have a huge, rocky mountain and also a back area with trees and grass for its herd. The snow leopard exhibit has excellent vertical space and is right next to the markhor for the predator and prey element. The young female snow leopard even ran and pounced on the fence to try to get to the markhor. The last exhibit, which isn't really in this themed section is for the Mexican gray wolf. It is a huge layered exhibit that has many hiding spaces for the wolves. It provides great vertical space and visitors can walk around 3/4 of the exhibit to try to spot the inhabitants. Mostly surrounded by mesh fencing, but it has a few viewing windows.

This small zoo was definitely a nice way to end the zoo trip.

 

[geomorph]

Thank you for these 4 insightful reviews!

 

[DavidBrown]

Thanks for the reviews. I visited the Franklin Park Zoo in 2016 and had the same reaction to it that you did. Some of the zoo is very good like the giraffe enclosure and the farm area, but much of it is old and sub-optimal like having the gorillas stuck inside all of the time (although the indoor exhibit seemed very good for what it was). They have enough space in that zoo to build essentially an entire zoo-worth of exhibits.

Did you get to see the kiwi? It was hiding when we were there.

I wanted to visit the Stone Zoo and Roger Williams Park Zoo, but did not have time. Your reviews helped me feel like I toured them though. Thanks for that.

 

[blospz]

Did you get to see the kiwi? It was hiding when we were there

I looked for a bit, but could not find it. It's always difficult to spot them since they are already dark in color (their feathers anyway). I've only seen one real quick in natural light for a kiwi talk at the Smithsonian National Zoo by peeking in the window.