Happy birthday and look forward to your reviews! I'm especially curious for a fresh perspective on Atlanta as I came very close to booking a trip last winter.
I'm afraid I can't give you a fresh perspective. I have been before, but that was before I started the quest to visit every AZA zoo and put all the old ones back on the table. Wanted to revisit the Georgia Aquarium, anyway, so I was fine going back to Atlanta. Zoo Atlanta has a lot going for it as far as I remember. A good gorilla complex, a surprisingly good reptile house, a few Asian rarities, and the pandas. And also a godawful Africa area. I'm told they've fixed up some of the Africa section and lost most of the rarities (they still had sun bears and raccoon dogs when I went). Curious to see how it holds up now as they prepare to lose their pandas and enter a new era.
Went to three places. Going to do a new kind of thing with one. I'll explain later.
Butterfly House and Aquarium
It was a little less impressive than I was expecting in many ways, and better in a few. As a dedicated butterfly house it's similar to some of the better ones I've been to like the one in St. Louis and the Indianapolis Zoo's. A full room with plants and a water feature or two. It had butterflies. You could feed them out of flower shaped cups (I did not). There was a pretty large area accessible to two native turtle species and king quail. I don't remember seeing king quail before and they are really, really cute. One was sitting on her eggs in a flowerpot tipped on its side. I thought their size let them work very well with the whimsical world of a butterfly house.
The tanks for herps and fish were nothing special. The aquarium signage was so bad I didn't even try a species list, which is a real shame because there were definitely species there that were unsigned and I'd rarely seen before. Some really pretty reef fish. Short-tailed nurse sharks were unsigned but present. Also had marbled jellyfish, yellow-headed jawfish, engineer gobies, and lumpfish. Pretty good selection for a one-room aquarium in South Dakota attached to a butterfly house. I wished there was a docent to ask but the only staff member I saw in the aquarium was clearly an aquarist busy with their job. There's an open-top tank that is not a touch tank. Kind of surprised that wasn't supervised.
The herp selection wasn't exceptional. A few fun cockroaches but not a dedicated insect zoo like the Butterfly House in St. Louis. The one that I don't remember seeing before was the Devil's Flower Mantis. I spent a very long time looking for it before realizing it was clinging to the mesh roof.
It's a good trip. You can buy a double-pack of tickets with the Great Plains Zoo and save some money. The two combined feels like a proper zoo experience, and for $21 it's probably worth it.
Falls Park
A free city park in the heart of Sioux Falls. There's some good signage on the history of the falls and the city, although it's pretty disappointing that they're just a shadow of their former self. The biggest fall is about twenty feet high. No Niagara, but still pretty impressive. They also let you climb on the rocks and get pretty close to the water. I did not as I did not trust my shoes to keep traction on wet rock. There's an observation tower but it's kind of wasted because there's just not much to see from it. Only worth it because it's free and there's an elevator. It's a good way to kill an hour. Would recommend going if you're ever visiting the zoo and have some time to kill.
Great Plains Zoo
It was better than I was expecting! Granted, my expectations were low. There used to be a sizable museum on property but it's closed because the old specimens had asbestos / arsenic in them and they aren't sure they have the budget to retrofit them. Can't fault them. Best not to expose their employees unnecessarily. The only part of the museum that's open is the cafe, gift shop, and an exhibit for hornbills and dwarf meerkats. The meerkats had climbing structures that they were using, a layer of substrate to dig in, and an exercise wheel for zoomies. The exercise wheel was incredibly popular and the mongoose kept lining up in single-file lines to run in it. The wheel's an ingeniously simply way to exercise energetic animals that don't get big exhibits in zoos. Surprised the meerkats
didn't have one.
The park is split into rough zoogeographic areas, although the borders kind of break down a little. The front of the park has an Asia section with macaques, Chinese alligators, komodo dragons in an enclosed area, Pallas cats, snow leopards, and amur tigers. The alligators and dragons were off display. The komodo dragon house could not be entered.
Both the big cats were sleeping on straw beds placed right against the glass. The tiger exhibit is fairly good for a small zoo. Water feature, different elevations, decent space. It's not the best I've seen but it serves its purpose. The snow leopard exhibit is one of the only ones in the zoo with a netted roof but it's really low and the elevation changes amount to a few small rock piles. It's still a little more space than I'm used to snow leopards getting but it's disappointing that there's no verticality for them. The Pallas cat exhibit felt too small for a cat that size. Or maybe Brookfield earlier in the month spoiled me with a large, highly vertical exhibit for their cat. The snow monkeys had some climbing structures and a water feature. I only saw two macaques and neither moved. I feel like I can't really judge it well.
The North America section has a genuinely excellent red fox exhibit with a fair bit of space and a burrow. The adjacent wolf exhibit is... fine. A little small. Especially since they seemed to have a pack of six. They were active and exhibiting pack behavior, including a howling session towards the end of the day. Just wish they had a little more room to run in. The exhibits for black and brown bears are among the best from a small zoo that didn't just fence off natural habitat. The black bear had a climbing structure. The brown bears had water features and patches of natural substrate to dig in. Exhibit size wasn't mind-blowing but it was decent, especially for the size of the zoo.
North America / The Americas also had exhibits for flamingoes and Galapagos tortoises as well as an ambassador animal yard. All were unoccupied. The flamingoes didn't seem to have that much water. There's also a small indoor area with tegu, bats, and snakes. The bat exhibit felt way too small for the species. About the size and quality of Milwaukee's vampire bat exhibit, but for Seba's. I won't call it the worst exhibit in the zoo because, trust me, that's
bad, but it's up there. Next to the rainforest building as it's called (it's one hallway with five or so terrariums) is a set of aviaries for macaws and rainbow lorikeets, neither of which were out.
North America also has the zoo's best exhibit. It's basically just a large grassland with some trees that they fenced off and put bison and mule deer in. There's a small area separated by a concrete barrier that the mule deer can presumably get to but the bison probably won't. I did not see the deer. The bison were mostly at an angle where they were all but out of view. Kind of weird they get a privacy angle like that on such a large exhibit, but I won't complain.
The zoo is actually pretty good about animal privacy. Most species had the option to be off-show.
To the west of the entry / Komodo area there's a whole bunch of stuff that isn't zoogeographically themed. There's an expansive area consisting of a wooded island and banks, a fair amount of flat space, and a lot of water with a bridge over it home to... a pelican that was off exhibit and Canada geese. The zoo is on a river / stream. It's already overflowing with Canada geese. They did not have to bring their own. Next to it is a fairly standard caprid mountain with bighorn sheep. They were all on the ground. It was one of the nicer mountains I've seen, though, and the caprids had actual grass. Next to that is a large picnic area. Across the way is a primate house with decent indoor-outdoor holdings for squirrel monkeys, colobus monkeys, and ring-tailed lemurs. It's an older building but still seems to be satisfactory. Not big enough to have much signage, though.
Nearby is a penguin exhibit. Oh, cool, an iconic cold weather species. Good choice for a South Dakota zoo... No. The penguins were indoors. In March. In South Dakota. The pool was drained. I guess they can't heat it to keep it from freezing. Anyway, the penguins had an admittedly pretty okay indoor area they shared with inca tern. There was a chart outlining who the penguins were, how they were related, and what their personalities were. The bears and big cats had similar charts. I liked that a lot. More zoos should have those.
The flamingoes have indoor viewing and it's actually pretty decent for a concrete room. Lot of water. Pads and faux grass put on almost all the floor to keep them from walking on concrete. They might have even been flighted in the winter as there was a perch attached to the wall. None of the flamingoes were on it.
Finally, there's a barn and barn-adjacent area. There's a small building with a few herps, none exceptional, and pretty good habitats for a flightless hawk and bald eagle. The red pandas were being fed and actively eating their bamboo. Seemed to have a decent amount of space between two enclosures and a solid amount of verticality. It's not an award winning exhibit or anything but it's good for a small zoo. Next to the building was a large sloped habitat with a pop-up window in the middle. It was home to a leopard tortoise. That was probably off display for the winter. I do not understand.
The only farm animals were sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens. The chickens were confined to a coop that seemed too small for such large birds. The goats and sheep only had access to half of the potential yards. The pigs were fine. I dunno. Farm struck me as kind of weird.
The rest of the area to the left of the entry is an Australia zoogeographic area. Kind of? The walkthrough area was closed and bizarrely enough the macropods weren't allowed into it, either. They were confined to smaller side enclosures. They weren't actively cleaning it or doing landscaping or anything. Other than that the only Australian animals in the area are singing dogs. The rest of the area is made up of alpaca, which had little signage, and bactrian camels and sheep whose signage connected them to the feral populations in Australia. There was also an unoccupied aviary for Australian birds that looked pretty nice, actually.
And now we come to Africa. Because every zoo's largest section must be Africa. There's a lion exhibit under construction that actually looks pretty modern. Should be one of the best in a small American zoo. The rhinos have a 2010 exhibit with decent outdoor space and atrocious indoor holding, even if the room was fairly big. The only saving grace is that the animals apparently had the choice to be outdoors or indoors. The only toy the rhino had was a single barrel. Otherwise it was just an empty concrete room. I get that ungulates don't have the highest enrichment needs but it was kind of sad.
You know what isn't
kind of sad, though? It's the giraffe winter holding. Now, look, I have more animal rights sympathies than most on this board. But I'd hope that we can all agree that a giraffe should not be confined for months in an area smaller than my one bedroom apartment. I have no idea how this is acceptable in the modern era or how the AZA hasn't mandated better holding for giraffes in northern zoos because it's starting to look like a chronic problem. The holding building also had meerkats so I guess it has some value in the summer.
As for the African savannah area, the outdoor giraffe exhibit looked okay. The African painted dogs had an exhibit that was bigger than many I've seen at much larger zoos. I was genuinely impressed. There's also a fairly large yard for a sulcatta tortoise who was off display.
And now I introduce you to the grand savannah, a massive piece of grass with a train route looping around it. About the size of the bison exhibit, if not bigger. Home to zebra and bongo... in a tiny corner of it, fenced off and across the stream from guest view. Most of the savannah isn't even an enclosure. It's just a lot of grass. It's genuinely in the top five most baffling things I've seen in a zoo.
I think I've given a pretty decent tour now. So here's where I do a new thing. The Great Plains Zoo put out a new master plan on Wednesday. I have not read it. While going through I kept an eye on how the exhibits actually looked, where trees were, how hard changes would be, how large empty spaces were, and tried to come up with my own master plan that would be realistic with the zoo's probable budget. There ended up being a few expensive projects but I'll try to present alternatives to them in case they proved to be too much. So, here it is. The master plan I would pitch to the Great Plains Zoo. And once this is done I will actually read the master plan, summarize it, and see how far off I was.
I would work to enhance the zoogeographic theming in the front half of the zoo. The Asia area would be expanded to include some of the unrelated exhibits such as the bighorn sheep and Canada goose pond. First change, I think the Pallas cat should be replaced with birds or squirrels. They fit the exhibit size better and the zoo is seriously lacking in birds (although that might just be the time of year I visited). Second, the snow leopard should get a higher ceiling and an actual climbing structure. The first big change, and one that I know probably won't happen, is that I would replace the komodo dragon area with an actual greenhouse. This would allow for year-round viewing and the new building could also provide updated holding space for the adjacent tropical animals in the winter. This would require some expansion into the pelican exhibit, but that was getting overhauled anyway.
I would split the pelican exhibit in two along the bridge. On one side would be small-clawed otters because there's a fair bit of water and land and how does this zoo
not have otters. Every zoo should have otters. They're crowd-pleasers that don't take too much space. River otters could also work if they were ignoring the zoogeographic theme and wanted something that could be out year-round. Some trees would need hot-wired or removed so the otters couldn't climb out. On the other side I would put either tapirs, babirusa or mutnjacs and a few Asian waterfowl and turtles. Tapir might need too much holding space. Muntjacs or chevrotains wouldn't but are a bit small for the space. Babirusa are more likely to attack turtles or waterfowl. Take your pick. I think there's some adjacent space that could be used for tapir holding, but it might not be enough.
I would like to get rid of the caprid mountain and replace it with a red-crowned crane aviary for more birds and compliment the snow monkeys. But there's, like, a zero percent chance that happens so at least they could put in gorals instead of bighorn sheep. Lake Superior and New Zoo have gorals and they aren't very big. If they want to keep the bighorn sheep they could build a new caprid structure in the bison paddock so the goats could have a place to retreat from bison. Would also add another species to the exhibit.
The Chinese Alligators are kind of weird being right across from kangaroos but honestly I can't see the zoo getting freshies and there's nothing better for that exhibit so I say leave it be. I'd replace the alpaca yard with either a red fox exhibit (spoilers, they're getting booted from North America) or a lorikeet aviary and winter holding. Camels and singing dogs can stay. I'd replace the sheep exhibit in Australia with emu. For the primate building I'd give tree kangaroos the area now occupied by colobus monkeys and then, on the other side, have two other arboreal species to compare and contrast in signage and maybe a skeleton model lineup. The ring-tailed lemurs can stay. They're iconic and I couldn't fit them elsewhere. Island primates, close enough. I'd put a cockatoo in the squirrel monkey area. I think they could do well in a primate exhibit and some of them are Australian. If the foxes don't make it into the alpaca area there are two 0.1 acre plots beside the house that could be used for them and maybe kookaburra if they can't go in the main Australia aviary. Feels wrong to have an Australia section without kookaburras.
As for the picnic field, I'm of two minds. It could just be left alone. There isn't another picnic area in the zoo. But it feels like a lot of wasted space. It's 0.7 acres, which is more than enough for a modern sea lion exhibit. Now, California sea lions don't live in Australia. But it would be easy enough to tie Australia to ocean and make it work. Sea lions are also another iconic cold weather animal that I've seen northern zoos keep outdoors. Riverbank's sea lion complex and Ft. Wayne's Australia aquarium could both fit in that space for a small aquarium complex.
I would find a way to give the chickens more space and also give the goats one of those overhead paths between paddocks that zoos love so much nowadays. It's popular for a reason and it's because they're really cool. The hawk / eagle / red panda building makes it through with zero changes. The leopard tortoise exhibit should be slightly modified for prairie dogs. Another species I'm shocked they don't have and it works well with the bubble in the middle.
Back to North America for a bit. Easiest section by far. The bear exhibits are among the best in the zoo and are going untouched. Same for the bison. I would merge the wolf and fox exhibits to give the wolves more space. It would be cool to have actual American birds instead of the lorikeets. Monk parakeets, maybe, if they could swing it. Or just have screech owls or something. I would also merge the tortoise and flamingo yards and expand the water area. Flamingoes and tortoises have been mixed at other zoos and I think the tortoises would appreciate a shallow pool to wallow in during the summer.
And... Africa. I would replace the outdoor giraffe area with cheetahs. They're a little more cold tolerant. I would do leopards since they could have a climbing structure alongside the elevated viewing platform, but i don't think they would want to net over the entire area. And then a very obvious change: fence off the savannah. Put the zebra, bongos, and tortoises in there. Maybe giraffes if they can afford better winter housing, but at this point I'm deeply skeptical on small zoos keeping giraffes in cold weather. Toss in ostriches and wildebeest and, bam, instant savannah exhibit. New savannah would be seven acres. About twenty times the size of the current zebra / bongo exhibit. Old giraffe housing can be demolished if the zoo isn't keeping giraffes anymore. Could maybe put (Amur) leopards in the outside yards and repurpose the inside into a Congo building with an aviary, fish, and herps. They don't really need to keep the meerkats since they have dwarf mongoose but if they insist they could probably fence off a small portion of the Africa area somewhere. Or put them in the current leopard tortoise exhibit. Whichever works.
I have never been in the Delbridge museum and can't comment on it but it would be cool if they made it into a proper museum on the Great Plains with some smaller species like loggerhead shrikes, black-footed ferrets, and burrowing owls alongside the taxidermy and display pieces.
Okay. Time to read
the actual master plan.
...
A few things I got right: wolf / fox areas merging. There is some expansion in the Africa area, with giraffe / bongo taking up a lot of currently unused space (and getting better holding) and zebras getting the wild dog exhibit and some of the unused space. Wild dogs moving into the old giraffe area. They are keeping the mountain but there's no indication of which species will be there.
Overall, they're a lot more ambitious than I was in some ways. Except the entrance. It seems like that's staying the same. I hope they at least get better waterfowl. The pallas cat exhibit is getting expanded and the snow leopards are moving, which is good. The red pandas are taking over the area around the very underwhelming tropical rainforest building. Even getting some raptors out by the bison. All good stuff. A little confused since the tigers are staying in the cat area and also taking over almost all of the Australia pens, save the kangaroo space. That's becoming a new primate complex. The old primate complex, Australian aviary, and the picnic space are getting bulldozed for a new kangaroo yard and maybe something else.
It seems like the barn's going away entirely in favor of an otter habitat and a nature play area. As for the museum? That's becoming a new aquarium and butterfly house. Apparently on a much grander scale than the current facility with a walkthrough tunnel with large sharks / sea turtles swimming around.
So. Seems my main problem was assuming they'd keep the zoogeographic theming lol. Are my plans better or worse than what we're getting? Well, I'm a little disappointed there isn't a massive savannah since they have the space, but I get that those are a bit overdone. The new areas for zebras and bongo / giraffe look pretty good-sized at least. New tiger habitat is going to be good for the species. Looks like a lot of the bigger species are getting habitat size increases.
It's such a small thing, but I honestly can't believe they're entirely scrapping the farm. Zoos have farms! That's, like, a rule! And no penguins! I get that they'd have to make major changes to the exhibit to keep them, and they might just be moving to the aquarium, but no penguins! How dare they! Oh well. If the master plan is realized it'll be a much stronger zoo than it is now. Here's hoping they move on the giraffe holding quickly.
