Persephone’s 2024 Road Trips

[Persephone]

Lehigh Valley Zoo

Some small zoos are hidden gems that punch well above their weight. The Lowcountry Zoo at Brookgreen Gardens is a lovely stroll through a coastal swamp forest with two massive aviaries. The Cosley Zoo has a surprisingly good collection of native birds. I don’t know if it still counts as “small,” but Akron has a great native birds aviary and an interesting concept in Legends of the Wild.

The Lehigh Valley Zoo is not a hidden gem. I was not expecting a hidden gem. It’s just a pretty competent small zoo that I’m glad exists but probably won’t visit again.

There are certainly standout elements. The African Penguin exhibit is pretty big with an admittedly shallow ring-shaped pool to allow for continuous swimming. There’s a good mix of rock and grass for the penguins to stand on when they’re out of the water. I’ve seen much worse penguin exhibits at much better funded zoos.

The wolf exhibit was absolutely gorgeous. A good water feature, many trees, and a mix of tall grass and more barren hillside. One of the back fences is a little hard to make out so it looks even bigger than it is. That was probably my biggest surprise, positive or negative, in the zoo.

Other exhibits, like the oryx-eland and red panda, were pretty good for their species relative to what I’d expect at a small zoo, but I don’t really have any complex thoughts on them. The river otter exhibit is built into an amphitheater that allows for a lot of good viewing of the otters. The land area might be a little small but they seemed to have a good deal of enrichment items on it. I’m very curious what this was initially for. Just seems weird to build an amphitheater for an animal without shows.

There is a lorikeet walkthrough but it was closed for the season (on Memorial Day weekend). It only seemed to have two lorikeets. Not two species, two lorikeets, plus maybe four other birds of another two species. Are there usually more? I’m just a little confused.

The raptors were all on display. There’s a mixed species aviary with ravens alongside bald and golden eagles. I don’t see the eagle species mixed very often. The rest of the raptor selection was pretty basic but they’re staples for a reason. Falcons, hawks, and two larger owls covers the bases for raptor types well enough without splitting the space so much that the individual aviaries are small.

The main food shop was closed, again on Memorial Day weekend. I wonder if they’re having staffing problems.

Their biggest rarity is probably the ringtail. Other than that and maybe a herp or the eland and aoudad there’s nothing you probably haven’t seen if you’ve been to any ten American zoos.

If I have a criticism it’s that crowd flow in the reptile house is really awful because the first terrarium is two feet from the door, so there’s not space for a queue to develop.

Trexler Preserve

The Lehigh Valley Zoo sits inside of a large preserve. It’s mostly just a nice park covering a stream, a few ridges, and a mix of grassland and woodland. There are three fenced-off areas with extirpated species.

The bison and elk are visible from the road. It’s probably best to see them from the road as the trail views aren’t great. In order to see them in a car you do have to cross a stream, through the stream. I did not want to gamble on my car making it with no problems.

The third species, and maybe the main reason to visit the zoo / preserve, is the American chestnut. There’s a four acre grove where the preserve is trying to grow blight-resistant cultivars of the critically endangered species and it’s probably one of the largest groves on the planet right now.

I hiked the red and double blue trails. I tried to hike the violet trail but couldn’t find either of its entrances. Admittedly I only did the eastern bank of the red trail but it’s very, very easy.

The western bank of double blue is also easy. Then there’s a 300 foot ascent. It’s doable for the average person but I wasn’t really prepared. I wish I’d brought more water and a hiking stick. This is the trail that I saw elk from and it led to a road that was just a short hike to the bison and chestnut. Just be prepared for the ascent, bring enough water, and dress adequately and you’ll be fine.

Reptiland and a lot of driving in the morning. Then maybe Fort Wayne on Tuesday. Maybe not. We’ll see how I’m feeling.

 

[JVM]

Thank you so much for the insight on Lehigh Valley - sometimes it's the reviews for the small zoos that feel the most interesting to me. Particularly glad to hear there's a good wolf exhibit as that seems like an easy animal to drop the ball on.

 

[Persephone]

Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland

I was initially really excited to see a full zoo dedicated to reptiles. Then I saw some reviews / discussion of the place and really lowered my expectations.

They were still too high.

Reptiland is one of the two reptile specialist collections in the AZA that’s regularly open to the public. The other, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, looks like an actual zoo. Reptiland is more of a reptile house from a pretty decent city zoo plopped down into the middle of nowhere. It’s essentially just one building, a dinosaur walkthrough area, and a few outdoor enclosures. None of the outdoor enclosures were particularly large but were all at least adequate for their species.

The first wing of the main building is home to three adult American alligators, one albino. The habitat is a good size for an indoor alligator habitat but not remarkable. One of the alligators was very large.

The second room is a more typical reptile house with terrariums of various sizes lining a looping hallway. The signage on reptiles as a whole was pretty good and I liked an educational video on amphibian conservation. Species specific signage was often very basic, but some species got a little more. Most focused more on their biology and behaviors than their conservation.

The smaller terrariums were mostly about at the decoration level I would expect from a large-ish city zoo’s reptile house. The poison dart frog exhibit was the standout as it was very lush and had a lot of verticality that the frogs were using. The larger terrariums along the edge of the room were pretty barren.

I was expecting Reptiland to have some rarer species and hidden gems. There really aren’t. The collection is a lot of popular, but interesting, herp species such as alligator snapping turtles, axolotl, African bullfrog king cobra, anaconda, large pythons, dwarf crocs, yellow-footed tortoise, and some juvenile Nile crocs. I saw one species that was new for me, Cuban knight anoles.

I will say that a lot of animals were being very active during my visit. The dart frogs were jumping and climbing all over their terrarium. The alligator snapping turtle and Florida softshell turtle were swimming back and forth. I think it’s the most active I’ve ever seen an alligator snapper. There were a half-dozen or more yellow-footed tortoises of all sizes, and several were quite determined to get across their exhibit with as much speed as they could muster. It was really cute.

The final indoor section isn’t directly connected to the other two. It contains a pretty good indoor exhibit for Komodo dragons and a functional one for Aldabra tortoises. There are outdoor yards for the yellow-footed tortoises and rock iguanas. The dragon and Aldabra tortoises rotate yard access. None of them were outside during the visit, but they can all be seen indoors.

There are two exclusively outdoor exhibits open right now. One is a kind of small emu paddock amidst their dinosaur animatronic walkthrough. The emus work to demonstrate that the dinosaurs didn’t really go extinct. They’re probably the second most dinosaur-looking birds after the cassowary.

There’s also just a really good native turtle pond for four native species. They have a water feature with lots of basking space and also a ring of tall grasses around it. The wood and box turtles seemed to prefer the dry sections while the pond sliders and the other species (I can’t recall which) stuck to the water. You could buy food to feed the turtles. I did not.

There’s usually a parakeet aviary but it was closed for maintenance.

The website heavily recommends guests check out a show while they’re visiting. I arrived right at ten, when a show was supposed to start. I beelined to the show building figuring that I would need to slink in the back as I was a few minutes late.

I found the presenter sweeping out an empty room. No one had shown up. Even on Memorial Day there was barely anyone in the zoo. I had a nice chat with the keeper while she brought animals out. I got to see a scorpion and rattlesnake and pet a Gila monster, pancake tortoise, and snake. It’s definitely worth doing if you paid the $20 for admission but it’s not a massive show or anything.

The presenter did tell me that they do a venom themed show “later in the year” that’s supposedly much better than the desert animals one that I saw.

One weird point of praise(?) for the place is that they had the weirdest zoo gift shop I’d ever seen. About half of it was standard zoo gifts, albeit only for reptiles. A third was African and Asian woodcarvings, textiles, and other pieces of craftsmanship. The signage at least claimed they were authentic and they were certainly priced accordingly. I didn’t buy anything from that section but it was cool to look at. I almost wish that there was signage on what some of the items were and how they were acquired.

Oh the last sixth is a set of bookshelves. They were also weird, as very few of the books had anything to do with reptiles and they only seemed to have one or two copies of each one stocked. Maybe there were more in the back.


Is it worth going to Reptiland? No. Not unless you live in Lewisburg and you really don’t have a good zoo in easy driving distance. Traveling zoo nerds probably won’t see anything new and the presentation, while generally good, isn’t anything mind blowing. Maybe stop by their gift shop / entrance building if you’re driving by it.


Well that would have been a disappointing finale. Tomorrow I make my first visit to the brand new Fort Wayne Zoo. I wonder how similar it is to a “Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo” I used to go to as a kid. I think it was even on the same plot of land. [/s]

 

[Persephone]

Fort Wayne Zoo

Fort Wayne Zoo holds a great deal of nostalgia for me. It was one of the zoos I visited most often during my childhood. Please be advised that my opinions on the facility are influenced by nostalgia.

But, honestly? Over 75 zoos in I’m just realizing more and more how lucky I was to have frequent access to this one. For my money it’s the best zoo in Indiana. It might be my favorite mid-size zoo yet, rivaled only by Gladys Porter.

Fort Wayne just has a level of polish to it. There aren’t massive set pieces or over the top cultural theming, but all five of the zones are distinct and aesthetically pleasing. Central Zoo is a nice stroll along the water, both in the exhibits and in the central pond. African Journey has vast stretches of grass contrasted with flowing water and a patch of rockwork. Almost of Asian Trek takes place either on a wooden path winding above the forest floor or in a densely planted aviary. Australian Adventure has red sand paths and a stately courtyard with a few theming pieces. Even the Indiana Family Farm, while having lost a great deal of its original theming, is trying a lot harder to resemble a rural farm than most zoo barnyard areas.

I also broadly like the signage. It’s aimed at kids but explains the behavior and habits of the major animals on multiple signs. Even smaller animals tend to at least get a location and a few sentences. Only a handful of species have essentially no signage, and that’s pretty clearly temporarily. There is one exception here. I’ll get to it down below.

I think there are only a few exhibits in the place that I think are truly unfortunate. The rest are pretty good, which is remarkable given their somewhat limited land area.

There are also a lot of rides for kids. I loved this when I was young but can’t remember the last time I stepped onto one as an adult.

I went during Lantern Fest and actually thought the cheap looking decorations detracted from the zoos excellent aesthetics. But it’s a temporary thing so I’m ignoring it for the review.

Central Zoo

Fort Wayne Zoo has four main exhibit complexes that each loop out from and return to a circular main path. The exhibits on this path, while technically the “Central Zoo” area, aren’t really intended to be seen sequentially. As such there’s no real cohesive theme beyond, perhaps, water. Most of the animals here are either popular species or ones the zoo has a good deal of history with.

The first exhibit is a renovated historic monkey island. This one has a few capuchins. They have a lot of climbing structures and more space than you’d expect for such a historic enclosure. The monkeys are usually doing something and it’s a good way to start the zoo day.

The Canada lynx exhibit has less verticality than I would like but more horizontal space than I’m used to seeing lynx get. It’s not an extraordinary amount but they have lots of hiding places and can patrol without having to constantly turn back around.

The river otter exhibit is fairly standard but a little bigger than usual. It has a nice mix of grass, trees, and water. River otters are as common as they are for good reason. They’re great display animals.

The California sea lion was renovated this year and I was frankly hoping for more. It might be a little wider than it was before. That’s not really the main problem. It’s the depth. Maybe optical illusions are throwing me off but I think the waters only four to five feet deep. That’s not a lot for species that spend a lot of time diving. Supposedly the main purpose of the renovation was to give them a sandy beach and. What? The land is just concrete painted to look like sand. I might have seen a small pile of real sand on one of the landing areas, but I didn’t see any tracked into the pool so I’m not sure about that. The theming also got an upgrade and is good without being excessive, as is true for most of Fort Wayne’s exhibits. I just really wish they either gave the pinnipeds a bigger, deeper exhibit or phased them out.

There’s a decent little outdoor exhibit for neotropical monkeys and sloths. They weren’t out because it’s cold. The exhibit is fine. So is a mixed species aviary for turkey vultures and snowy owls. And also the alligator exhibit. Not really much to say here.

The African Penguin exhibit is fairly average in size but has dozens of penguins. I also wish their water was deeper.

I think the Aldabra tortoise exhibit is a bit too small and barren. I wish they could have their exhibit expanded a little into the adjacent train turn around area, potentially with underpasses to let them go under the tracks and access the fairly large central field.

African Journey

After the zoo did a full renovation of their African Veldt they moved on to do partial renovations of Asian Trek and Central Zoo and a pretty extensive renovation of Australian Adventure.

African Journey still blows all of them away. It’s really the best zoo “wing” in Indiana and one of the prettiest savannah type exhibits I’ve seen. There’s a small stream running from the start of the area into a set of larger ponds for sitatunga and pelicans, as well as a large watering hole forming a barrier with the main savannah. Swamp monkeys are located near the stream but don’t really have a large pond. This is all very pretty and well planted.

Next the path goes into some rockwork for what was originally an area dedicated to the savannah’s carnivores. At opening this included lions, white storks, hyenas, snakes, foxes, mongoose, servals, and ratel. And also a dik-dik for some reason. The snakes, ratel, and dik-dik are long gone, replaced by cape porcupine and radiated tortoises.

I think the rockwork is fairly well done without being overly impressive. I like the signage for the lions. The lion and hyena exhibits have berms that make them look larger than they are and give the lions a high point to sit on. My second biggest problem with African Journey is that I wish some of the smaller mammals had better exhibits. The foxes and porcupine could use more space and the serval needs some more verticality.

The path then goes to a forest themed area that really should have seen more renovations than it got when African Journey was overhauled. Some of the theming has been lost but I don’t really care to be honest. The playground is a better use of space than an empty but pretty pond. This area also has three fairly large exhibits for African primates and some functional aviaries for eagle owls and parrots / bustards.

If you took a shot every time I complain about a spotted cat exhibit you would be dead by now. I think the leopard exhibit here is too small, even by the standards of leopard exhibits. Its only saving grace is good verticality.

I guess I should talk about the savannah itself. It’s split into two parts. The larger is about three acres (I think, cat won’t get off my lap to let me check that). That’s not the biggest zoo savannah by any stretch of the imagination but it’s still pretty good for one without rhinos or giraffes. Instead it has ostrich, zebra, wildebeest, and marabou stork. I only counted eight animals total in it. The griffon vultures that formerly lived there have recently been moved to their own exhibit. I hope the stork follows in good time. There are a few semi-enclosed viewing areas along the savannah with information on migrations and herd behavior. I like it. There’s also a fairly large exhibit for giraffes that’s only getting larger with ongoing construction. A grove of trees also lets the giraffes have some privacy if they want it. Overall it’s one of the better single-species exhibits I’ve seen for giraffes.

Finally there’s a wattled crane exhibit that’s meant to tie in with a return to the swampy part of the complex. It’s a decent size and I love the birds. Always fun to listen to guest reactions.

I think it’s a very well rounded, good looking exhibit complex that doesn’t lean too much on over the top theming. I like it a lot more than its equivalents at Indianapolis and Mesker Park. I would probably like it more than the ones at Brookfield and Lincoln Park, too, I’d it weren’t for Brookfield’s pangolins.

Asian Trek

Asian Trek has received a few recent renovations but is still mostly about thirty years old. For the standards of a thirty year old zoo exhibit it holds up pretty well. This zone is really just a fusion of two previously unrelated project and admittedly very cool looking ropes course.

The newer project is a mock bamboo forest for red pandas and a few other species. I actually think the fake bamboo looks kind of bad. The red pandas have two exhibits. The larger is enclosed by mesh on the roof and three sides but has an open view for guests. It’s a decent size and has a lot of climbing opportunities. Weirdly the muntjac are in the smaller red panda exhibit. The third exhibit in the complex now has binturongs, which have next to nothing to do with red pandas but used to live in Asia Trek in the 00s so I’m glad to see them make a return.

The Indonesian trail dates back to 1994, mostly. It opens with a shed containing a few Indonesian percussion instruments and some information about the islands cultural geography. It’s pretty clearly aimed at kids. I do remember liking it a lot when I was younger.

One of the newer features is a clouded leopard exhibit. It’s well planted, has a fair few climbing structures, and has more space than the species usually gets.

The entrance into the Indonesian building used to be a maximalist little indoor playground themed to a field researcher based in Indonesia. There were hammocks, preserved butterflies, an elephant skeleton, and a few other features for kids. They recently tore that out and went with a much more minimalist design that’s basically a dark room with smooth walls and five exhibits. There are three terrariums for endangered turtles and other Asian reptiles. They’re good but not really remarkable. Next is a surprisingly large exhibit for tree shrews that used to be a Burmese Python exhibit. It gives them a lot of climbing and hiding opportunities and I’m glad it exists. The new python exhibit has a few different layers, space to curl up on the ground, and a water feature. It might be my favorite large snake exhibit I’ve seen, but the bar is very, very low.

The main aviary for Indonesia is about ten thousand square feet, very lushly planted, and is one of my favorite areas in the zoo. It can get very loud on crowded days (like today) but is also a good place to just look for movement in the bushes. There are about a half dozen pigeon and dove species, including crowned pigeons that are not at all scared by the humans on the path. My favorite birds are the pygmy geese. This is the one part of the zoo with terrible signage. The original signage was in little wooden “books” kids could flip through. This makes it very hard to update the signage when species are rotated through. About half the total species were signed, mostly the doves, and a few species that are no longer present were signed because the species on the opposite side of the page was still there. Thankfully there was a docent who could clear things up. There were actually a lot of docents out and about today.

Okay so now is the obligatory part where I interrupt the flow of the review to talk about food. The restaurant by Indonesia has rotated out once every one to three years since the original tenant moved out about a decade (decade and a half?) ago. Now it’s a pizza restaurant. They gave me the wrong sandwich and charged $15 for a cold cut. The restaurant in Australia is both better and cheaper. Don’t eat in Asia Trek, at least until they rotate out the current tenant.

The Sumatran tiger exhibit used to have a lot more signage on tigers and how researchers study them, but I feel like a lot of it was removed in favor of a kind of bad art piece. The actual exhibit is fine, which is an achievement given its age and the zoo’s size. They could stand to have a little more space and a bigger pool, but it’s about in line with what I expect from zoo tiger exhibits.

The final part of Asia Trek is an elevated boardwalk back through the forest. It’s built over a hill so it looks taller than it is. The signage on the trail explains deforestation in a kid friendly way and a few actions that can be taken to mitigate it. For a child-targeted summation of a complex problem it’s pretty good. There are two smaller exhibits for birds and squirrels. The main rarity in this part of the zoo are the two large exhibits for Javan gibbons. One of these used to house hornbills, and while I do miss them it’s cool they have two pairs of the rare primates.

Australian Adventure

This is the only renovation that I think actively made the original worse. It basically only put in a play area, traded one big aviary for a few smaller ones and a kid’s splash area, closed an old building for smaller species, and turned a nocturnal house into a petting area for stingrays from the Atlantic Ocean. I guess it looks prettier now? It’s a little hard but I’ll try to be objective towards what’s there now, not what was.

The main courtyard has two aquariums. The larger of the two has a few small tanks and then two big ones. One is for mid-sized sharks. It used to have Queensland grouper. I loved the grouper. I am sad they are no longer there. Tasseled wobbegong are an okay consolation prize, but I’ve seen enough blacktip reef and zebra sharks that they don’t do much for me anymore. The other tank is a fairly standard coral community tank. I hate the signage on this one. It’s electronic and sorted by… color. There is no page with every fish listed. It makes it hard to tell what all is there.

The main trail feels much weaker than the Indonesian and African loops. There are three mammals, a few birds, and some terrariums for reptiles. None of the reptiles are particularly rare or interesting. The birds are mostly pretty standard and I think they lost magpies since my last visit. The walkthrough aviary is also pretty depopulated right now with three birds from two species after a mass death event in the winter. The curator didn’t have any more details than that.

Two of the mammal species are dingoes and red kangaroos. I think dingoes are cute but they’re basically just dogs. Red kangaroo walkthroughs also don’t really do it for me anymore. The third mammal is the Tasmanian Devil and this is basically the only reason I go out on the Australia path anymore. It’s remarkable that a zoo of this size has them and I actually got to see them active today. The exhibit is bigger than the ones in Toledo and Columbus, much bigger facilities.

Listen, even Fort Wayne Zoo knows that Australia is their weak link. On their own website it recommends going to only Africa and Central Zoo if you have a few hours, add Asia Trek if you have time, and then Australia and the farm. I just can’t see it getting any work until the Central Zoo and Asia Trek renovations are completed. I know koalas are probably unrealistic but I really hope the stingray touch pool gets replaced by echidnas, or tree kangaroos, or something. I would take emu and wallaby in the kangaroo walkthrough. It just doesn’t feel like this wing has enough as is.

Indiana Family Farm

It’s more dressed up than most farms. It has rabbits, sheep, pigs, domestic pigeons, chicken, goats, and a red-tailed hawk. I like the pigeons a lot. They’re always cooing back and forth to each other. The rabbits are very big and fluffy. I didn’t pet the goats but the yard for them is pretty big.

I’m glad they don’t have horses and cows here anymore. It wasn’t big enough. But the removal of a couple theming elements and a few species leaves it kind of basic. I wonder if this is getting renovated soon?

Rides

Each of the four core wings of the zoo has its own ride. African Journey has a ski lift. Central Zoo has a train. Australian Adventure has a log flume with no drops. None of these actually provide particularly good views of the exhibits.

The zoo does have an absolutely gorgeous endangered species carousel with a wide range of animals represented. It was my favorite ride as a kid and honestly it still might be the best looking zoo carousel I’ve seen.


Trip Wrap-up and The Future

I was expecting nothing from this trip and my expectations were met. It was nice seeing my friend in Allentown. When trying to visit every AZA zoo you end up with some trips like this one.

I’m trying to get a job outside Indiana but that hasn’t been working out very well for the last six months. If I’m still in this state in October my next trip will be to Baltimore and D.C. That promises to be much more interesting than this one.

 

[StoppableSan]

Fort Wayne Zoo

Fort Wayne Zoo holds a great deal of nostalgia for me. It was one of the zoos I visited most often during my childhood. Please be advised that my opinions on the facility are influenced by nostalgia.

But, honestly? Over 75 zoos in I’m just realizing more and more how lucky I was to have frequent access to this one. For my money it’s the best zoo in Indiana. It might be my favorite mid-size zoo yet, rivaled only by Gladys Porter.

Fort Wayne just has a level of polish to it. There aren’t massive set pieces or over the top cultural theming, but all five of the zones are distinct and aesthetically pleasing. Central Zoo is a nice stroll along the water, both in the exhibits and in the central pond. African Journey has vast stretches of grass contrasted with flowing water and a patch of rockwork. Almost of Asian Trek takes place either on a wooden path winding above the forest floor or in a densely planted aviary. Australian Adventure has red sand paths and a stately courtyard with a few theming pieces. Even the Indiana Family Farm, while having lost a great deal of its original theming, is trying a lot harder to resemble a rural farm than most zoo barnyard areas.

I also broadly like the signage. It’s aimed at kids but explains the behavior and habits of the major animals on multiple signs. Even smaller animals tend to at least get a location and a few sentences. Only a handful of species have essentially no signage, and that’s pretty clearly temporarily. There is one exception here. I’ll get to it down below.

I think there are only a few exhibits in the place that I think are truly unfortunate. The rest are pretty good, which is remarkable given their somewhat limited land area.

There are also a lot of rides for kids. I loved this when I was young but can’t remember the last time I stepped onto one as an adult.

I went during Lantern Fest and actually thought the cheap looking decorations detracted from the zoos excellent aesthetics. But it’s a temporary thing so I’m ignoring it for the review.

Central Zoo

Fort Wayne Zoo has four main exhibit complexes that each loop out from and return to a circular main path. The exhibits on this path, while technically the “Central Zoo” area, aren’t really intended to be seen sequentially. As such there’s no real cohesive theme beyond, perhaps, water. Most of the animals here are either popular species or ones the zoo has a good deal of history with.

The first exhibit is a renovated historic monkey island. This one has a few capuchins. They have a lot of climbing structures and more space than you’d expect for such a historic enclosure. The monkeys are usually doing something and it’s a good way to start the zoo day.

The Canada lynx exhibit has less verticality than I would like but more horizontal space than I’m used to seeing lynx get. It’s not an extraordinary amount but they have lots of hiding places and can patrol without having to constantly turn back around.

The river otter exhibit is fairly standard but a little bigger than usual. It has a nice mix of grass, trees, and water. River otters are as common as they are for good reason. They’re great display animals.

The California sea lion was renovated this year and I was frankly hoping for more. It might be a little wider than it was before. That’s not really the main problem. It’s the depth. Maybe optical illusions are throwing me off but I think the waters only four to five feet deep. That’s not a lot for species that spend a lot of time diving. Supposedly the main purpose of the renovation was to give them a sandy beach and. What? The land is just concrete painted to look like sand. I might have seen a small pile of real sand on one of the landing areas, but I didn’t see any tracked into the pool so I’m not sure about that. The theming also got an upgrade and is good without being excessive, as is true for most of Fort Wayne’s exhibits. I just really wish they either gave the pinnipeds a bigger, deeper exhibit or phased them out.

There’s a decent little outdoor exhibit for neotropical monkeys and sloths. They weren’t out because it’s cold. The exhibit is fine. So is a mixed species aviary for turkey vultures and snowy owls. And also the alligator exhibit. Not really much to say here.

The African Penguin exhibit is fairly average in size but has dozens of penguins. I also wish their water was deeper.

I think the Aldabra tortoise exhibit is a bit too small and barren. I wish they could have their exhibit expanded a little into the adjacent train turn around area, potentially with underpasses to let them go under the tracks and access the fairly large central field.

African Journey

After the zoo did a full renovation of their African Veldt they moved on to do partial renovations of Asian Trek and Central Zoo and a pretty extensive renovation of Australian Adventure.

African Journey still blows all of them away. It’s really the best zoo “wing” in Indiana and one of the prettiest savannah type exhibits I’ve seen. There’s a small stream running from the start of the area into a set of larger ponds for sitatunga and pelicans, as well as a large watering hole forming a barrier with the main savannah. Swamp monkeys are located near the stream but don’t really have a large pond. This is all very pretty and well planted.

Next the path goes into some rockwork for what was originally an area dedicated to the savannah’s carnivores. At opening this included lions, white storks, hyenas, snakes, foxes, mongoose, servals, and ratel. And also a dik-dik for some reason. The snakes, ratel, and dik-dik are long gone, replaced by cape porcupine and radiated tortoises.

I think the rockwork is fairly well done without being overly impressive. I like the signage for the lions. The lion and hyena exhibits have berms that make them look larger than they are and give the lions a high point to sit on. My second biggest problem with African Journey is that I wish some of the smaller mammals had better exhibits. The foxes and porcupine could use more space and the serval needs some more verticality.

The path then goes to a forest themed area that really should have seen more renovations than it got when African Journey was overhauled. Some of the theming has been lost but I don’t really care to be honest. The playground is a better use of space than an empty but pretty pond. This area also has three fairly large exhibits for African primates and some functional aviaries for eagle owls and parrots / bustards.

If you took a shot every time I complain about a spotted cat exhibit you would be dead by now. I think the leopard exhibit here is too small, even by the standards of leopard exhibits. Its only saving grace is good verticality.

I guess I should talk about the savannah itself. It’s split into two parts. The larger is about three acres (I think, cat won’t get off my lap to let me check that). That’s not the biggest zoo savannah by any stretch of the imagination but it’s still pretty good for one without rhinos or giraffes. Instead it has ostrich, zebra, wildebeest, and marabou stork. I only counted eight animals total in it. The griffon vultures that formerly lived there have recently been moved to their own exhibit. I hope the stork follows in good time. There are a few semi-enclosed viewing areas along the savannah with information on migrations and herd behavior. I like it. There’s also a fairly large exhibit for giraffes that’s only getting larger with ongoing construction. A grove of trees also lets the giraffes have some privacy if they want it. Overall it’s one of the better single-species exhibits I’ve seen for giraffes.

Finally there’s a wattled crane exhibit that’s meant to tie in with a return to the swampy part of the complex. It’s a decent size and I love the birds. Always fun to listen to guest reactions.

I think it’s a very well rounded, good looking exhibit complex that doesn’t lean too much on over the top theming. I like it a lot more than its equivalents at Indianapolis and Mesker Park. I would probably like it more than the ones at Brookfield and Lincoln Park, too, I’d it weren’t for Brookfield’s pangolins.

Asian Trek

Asian Trek has received a few recent renovations but is still mostly about thirty years old. For the standards of a thirty year old zoo exhibit it holds up pretty well. This zone is really just a fusion of two previously unrelated project and admittedly very cool looking ropes course.

The newer project is a mock bamboo forest for red pandas and a few other species. I actually think the fake bamboo looks kind of bad. The red pandas have two exhibits. The larger is enclosed by mesh on the roof and three sides but has an open view for guests. It’s a decent size and has a lot of climbing opportunities. Weirdly the muntjac are in the smaller red panda exhibit. The third exhibit in the complex now has binturongs, which have next to nothing to do with red pandas but used to live in Asia Trek in the 00s so I’m glad to see them make a return.

The Indonesian trail dates back to 1994, mostly. It opens with a shed containing a few Indonesian percussion instruments and some information about the islands cultural geography. It’s pretty clearly aimed at kids. I do remember liking it a lot when I was younger.

One of the newer features is a clouded leopard exhibit. It’s well planted, has a fair few climbing structures, and has more space than the species usually gets.

The entrance into the Indonesian building used to be a maximalist little indoor playground themed to a field researcher based in Indonesia. There were hammocks, preserved butterflies, an elephant skeleton, and a few other features for kids. They recently tore that out and went with a much more minimalist design that’s basically a dark room with smooth walls and five exhibits. There are three terrariums for endangered turtles and other Asian reptiles. They’re good but not really remarkable. Next is a surprisingly large exhibit for tree shrews that used to be a Burmese Python exhibit. It gives them a lot of climbing and hiding opportunities and I’m glad it exists. The new python exhibit has a few different layers, space to curl up on the ground, and a water feature. It might be my favorite large snake exhibit I’ve seen, but the bar is very, very low.

The main aviary for Indonesia is about ten thousand square feet, very lushly planted, and is one of my favorite areas in the zoo. It can get very loud on crowded days (like today) but is also a good place to just look for movement in the bushes. There are about a half dozen pigeon and dove species, including crowned pigeons that are not at all scared by the humans on the path. My favorite birds are the pygmy geese. This is the one part of the zoo with terrible signage. The original signage was in little wooden “books” kids could flip through. This makes it very hard to update the signage when species are rotated through. About half the total species were signed, mostly the doves, and a few species that are no longer present were signed because the species on the opposite side of the page was still there. Thankfully there was a docent who could clear things up. There were actually a lot of docents out and about today.

Okay so now is the obligatory part where I interrupt the flow of the review to talk about food. The restaurant by Indonesia has rotated out once every one to three years since the original tenant moved out about a decade (decade and a half?) ago. Now it’s a pizza restaurant. They gave me the wrong sandwich and charged $15 for a cold cut. The restaurant in Australia is both better and cheaper. Don’t eat in Asia Trek, at least until they rotate out the current tenant.

The Sumatran tiger exhibit used to have a lot more signage on tigers and how researchers study them, but I feel like a lot of it was removed in favor of a kind of bad art piece. The actual exhibit is fine, which is an achievement given its age and the zoo’s size. They could stand to have a little more space and a bigger pool, but it’s about in line with what I expect from zoo tiger exhibits.

The final part of Asia Trek is an elevated boardwalk back through the forest. It’s built over a hill so it looks taller than it is. The signage on the trail explains deforestation in a kid friendly way and a few actions that can be taken to mitigate it. For a child-targeted summation of a complex problem it’s pretty good. There are two smaller exhibits for birds and squirrels. The main rarity in this part of the zoo are the two large exhibits for Javan gibbons. One of these used to house hornbills, and while I do miss them it’s cool they have two pairs of the rare primates.

Australian Adventure

This is the only renovation that I think actively made the original worse. It basically only put in a play area, traded one big aviary for a few smaller ones and a kid’s splash area, closed an old building for smaller species, and turned a nocturnal house into a petting area for stingrays from the Atlantic Ocean. I guess it looks prettier now? It’s a little hard but I’ll try to be objective towards what’s there now, not what was.

The main courtyard has two aquariums. The larger of the two has a few small tanks and then two big ones. One is for mid-sized sharks. It used to have Queensland grouper. I loved the grouper. I am sad they are no longer there. Tasseled wobbegong are an okay consolation prize, but I’ve seen enough blacktip reef and zebra sharks that they don’t do much for me anymore. The other tank is a fairly standard coral community tank. I hate the signage on this one. It’s electronic and sorted by… color. There is no page with every fish listed. It makes it hard to tell what all is there.

The main trail feels much weaker than the Indonesian and African loops. There are three mammals, a few birds, and some terrariums for reptiles. None of the reptiles are particularly rare or interesting. The birds are mostly pretty standard and I think they lost magpies since my last visit. The walkthrough aviary is also pretty depopulated right now with three birds from two species after a mass death event in the winter. The curator didn’t have any more details than that.

Two of the mammal species are dingoes and red kangaroos. I think dingoes are cute but they’re basically just dogs. Red kangaroo walkthroughs also don’t really do it for me anymore. The third mammal is the Tasmanian Devil and this is basically the only reason I go out on the Australia path anymore. It’s remarkable that a zoo of this size has them and I actually got to see them active today. The exhibit is bigger than the ones in Toledo and Columbus, much bigger facilities.

Listen, even Fort Wayne Zoo knows that Australia is their weak link. On their own website it recommends going to only Africa and Central Zoo if you have a few hours, add Asia Trek if you have time, and then Australia and the farm. I just can’t see it getting any work until the Central Zoo and Asia Trek renovations are completed. I know koalas are probably unrealistic but I really hope the stingray touch pool gets replaced by echidnas, or tree kangaroos, or something. I would take emu and wallaby in the kangaroo walkthrough. It just doesn’t feel like this wing has enough as is.

Indiana Family Farm

It’s more dressed up than most farms. It has rabbits, sheep, pigs, domestic pigeons, chicken, goats, and a red-tailed hawk. I like the pigeons a lot. They’re always cooing back and forth to each other. The rabbits are very big and fluffy. I didn’t pet the goats but the yard for them is pretty big.

I’m glad they don’t have horses and cows here anymore. It wasn’t big enough. But the removal of a couple theming elements and a few species leaves it kind of basic. I wonder if this is getting renovated soon?

Rides

Each of the four core wings of the zoo has its own ride. African Journey has a ski lift. Central Zoo has a train. Australian Adventure has a log flume with no drops. None of these actually provide particularly good views of the exhibits.

The zoo does have an absolutely gorgeous endangered species carousel with a wide range of animals represented. It was my favorite ride as a kid and honestly it still might be the best looking zoo carousel I’ve seen.


Trip Wrap-up and The Future

I was expecting nothing from this trip and my expectations were met. It was nice seeing my friend in Allentown. When trying to visit every AZA zoo you end up with some trips like this one.

I’m trying to get a job outside Indiana but that hasn’t been working out very well for the last six months. If I’m still in this state in October my next trip will be to Baltimore and D.C. That promises to be much more interesting than this one.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on the orangutan exhibit in Fort Wayne - from what I read on it, the space does a decent job keeping them up in the branches, but I'd like to see it in person at some point so I can properly judge. Well-written as always!

 

[Persephone]

I'm curious what your thoughts are on the orangutan exhibit in Fort Wayne - from what I read on it, the space does a decent job keeping them up in the branches, but I'd like to see it in person at some point so I can properly judge. Well-written as always!

Can’t believe I forgot to comment on that. The orangs stay in the branches, level with the viewing area, because there isn’t really a floor. There’s just a shallow pool of water at the bottom with fake branches connected by ropes above. There always seem to be a small number of objects like blankets or toys in there. Supposedly an outdoor enclosure is in the pipeline. They really need it.

 

[snowleopard]

Monterey Bay Aquarium I just think I overhyped it a bit in my head. A few stars being gone or off-display hurt it further.

The Open Sea

This gallery holds Monterey Bay’s biggest tank. It’s where many of the aquarium’s past heavy hitters, from white sharks to ocean sunfish, have resided. And it’s a very interesting signature tank in that it’s not depicting a coastal or reef environment. There’s no decor at all. Just blue walls presenting the illusion of an endless sea. There are currently six species inside. A juvenile scalloped hammerhead, dolphin fish, yellowfin tuna, pelagic stingrays, a smaller fish I forgot, and pacific sardines. There used to be sea turtles and ocean sunfish. They’re currently absent. And their absence is keenly felt.

The first part of The Open Sea might honestly be better than the main tank.

When I first visited Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2006, I adored the Open Sea tank. Admission was half what it is now, the exhibit was a spectacular million gallons, and I went back in 2008 and 2011. Not bad for someone who lives in Canada!

But then I began to visit aquariums in Europe and Asia, with several facilities having tanks that hold a million gallons and all of those particular establishments have more species and better viewing areas than what is at Monterey Bay. At the time it was a trend-setter, but now 30 years down the road the idea of having no decor at all in the main tank is kind of boring for visitors. The viewing hallway is cramped in comparison to other places, there's not a lot of different species to look at, and there's literally no "heavy hitters", as you put it. When I returned in 2023 for a 4th visit, I too was slightly underwhelmed. Singapore's S.E.A. Aquarium's main tank is 5 times larger, contains at least 50 species, and has Reef Manta Rays. That tank is something else. Monterey Bay's Open Sea tank used to be elite, but now it's a bit dated once one sees mega tanks elsewhere.

Monterey Bay is everything the aquarium industry claims they can be, all the good they claim they can do, and Georgia is, in many ways, the epitome of what the industry actually is.

…but like, Georgia is just a better aquarium from a guest perspective. Into The Deep and Monterey Bay Habitats are phenomenal but when you put them up against Sharks! and Ocean Voyager, 99% of the general public are taking the latter. And, yeah, I would too. Monterey Bay with sunfish is closer but without them it’s a fairly clear second place. It’s quiet wonder against jaw dropping awe.

These are interesting statements. I wonder if you told 100 ZooChatters that you would fly them to either Monterey Bay or Atlanta next week, with their choice of aquarium, then which one would they select? The Whale Sharks and the Ocean Voyager tank, plus the new Sharks! Predators of the Deep complex, makes me think that you are correct and 99% of people would select Georgia Aquarium. Who wouldn't? Monterey Bay is still one of the best aquariums I've seen in my lifetime, a truly fantastic attraction, but it feels like it needs something new...maybe an expanded and modernized penguin habitat?

Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland

I was initially really excited to see a full zoo dedicated to reptiles. Then I saw some reviews / discussion of the place and really lowered my expectations.

They were still too high.

Reptiland is one of the two reptile specialist collections in the AZA that’s regularly open to the public. The other, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, looks like an actual zoo. [/s]

There's a ton of reptile zoos in the U.S., but it's a bit disheartening that only two of them are AZA-accredited. I know that most facilities simply don't want the hassle of inspections, dealing with more regulations, and having an organization overseeing animal transfers and other items. I guess it makes sense, as the collection and display of reptiles and amphibians is a whole world onto itself and nobody wants the AZA poking around.

Fort Wayne Zoo

Fort Wayne Zoo holds a great deal of nostalgia for me. It was one of the zoos I visited most often during my childhood. Please be advised that my opinions on the facility are influenced by nostalgia.

But, honestly? Over 75 zoos in I’m just realizing more and more how lucky I was to have frequent access to this one. For my money it’s the best zoo in Indiana. It might be my favorite mid-size zoo yet, rivaled only by Gladys Porter.

Fort Wayne just has a level of polish to it. There aren’t massive set pieces or over the top cultural theming, but all five of the zones are distinct and aesthetically pleasing.

I toured Fort Wayne ('Children's') Zoo in 2010 and was lucky enough to go behind the scenes in the Australian zone during my visit. I enjoyed seeing around 20 Eastern Grey Kangaroos in the walk-through, Tawny Frogmouths, a Carpet Python, a Great Barrier Reef tank with 30 species, Fruit Bats, Echidnas and Striped Possums (which I've only seen at one other zoo in my lifetime) and other delights. By all accounts, that zone is now much weaker 15 years later.

As you pointed out, African Journey used to have a few different species and I saw Ratels there in 2010. Also, Spectacled Langurs were in the Asian section. It's a real shame that the Sumatran Orangutan exhibit remains the same, as I thought it was god-awful back then and to still not have an outdoor enclosure is a crying shame. It's a bit perplexing that the zoo hasn't made it a priority to fundraise for a new orang exhibit, or phase out the species in favour of a smaller Asian primate. Oh, that's right, the AZA has hardly any Asian monkeys left anywhere. They've disappeared faster than elephants.

 

[Persephone]

When I first visited Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2006, I adored the Open Sea tank. Admission was half what it is now, the exhibit was a spectacular million gallons, and I went back in 2008 and 2011. Not bad for someone who lives in Canada!

But then I began to visit aquariums in Europe and Asia, with several facilities having tanks that hold a million gallons and all of those particular establishments have more species and better viewing areas than what is at Monterey Bay. At the time it was a trend-setter, but now 30 years down the road the idea of having no decor at all in the main tank is kind of boring for visitors. The viewing hallway is cramped in comparison to other places, there's not a lot of different species to look at, and there's literally no "heavy hitters", as you put it. When I returned in 2023 for a 4th visit, I too was slightly underwhelmed. Singapore's S.E.A. Aquarium's main tank is 5 times larger, contains at least 50 species, and has Reef Manta Rays. That tank is something else. Monterey Bay's Open Sea tank used to be elite, but now it's a bit dated once one sees mega tanks elsewhere.

I think Monterey Bay’s tank is still unique for the environment it depicts but I agree it’s been surpassed in showmanship by not only the big aquariums but smaller facilities like Tennessee.

These are interesting statements. I wonder if you told 100 ZooChatters that you would fly them to either Monterey Bay or Atlanta next week, with their choice of aquarium, then which one would they select? The Whale Sharks and the Ocean Voyager tank, plus the new Sharks! Predators of the Deep complex, makes me think that you are correct and 99% of people would select Georgia Aquarium. Who wouldn't? Monterey Bay is still one of the best aquariums I've seen in my lifetime, a truly fantastic attraction, but it feels like it needs something new...maybe an expanded and modernized penguin habitat?

Penguins would be nice but are a little off-theme. I’m sure when MBA does make their next big move it will be both great and utterly out of left field. See their last one.

There's a ton of reptile zoos in the U.S., but it's a bit disheartening that only two of them are AZA-accredited. I know that most facilities simply don't want the hassle of inspections, dealing with more regulations, and having an organization overseeing animal transfers and other items. I guess it makes sense, as the collection and display of reptiles and amphibians is a whole world onto itself and nobody wants the AZA poking around.

There are a number of facilities where I’m curious why they even want AZA accreditation. Chiefly the accredited butterfly houses. I feel similarly about this one. Maybe it helps them plug into AZA conservation problems? But if the price is a very standard collection I’m not sure it’s worth it.

I toured Fort Wayne ('Children's') Zoo in 2010 and was lucky enough to go behind the scenes in the Australian zone during my visit. I enjoyed seeing around 20 Eastern Grey Kangaroos in the walk-through, Tawny Frogmouths, a Carpet Python, a Great Barrier Reef tank with 30 species, Fruit Bats, Echidnas and Striped Possums (which I've only seen at one other zoo in my lifetime) and other delights. By all accounts, that zone is now much weaker 15 years later.

I’m sure the current version is a lot friendlier to children and that’s why they made the changes they did. It’s also much prettier than the old version. I still really wish they kept at least one of the two buildings focused on smaller species. Fort Wayne is usually really good with having mid-size animals like cats, primates, and large birds but here there’s just… nothing. The devils, sure, but that’s not even a species they can reliably stock.

As you pointed out, African Journey used to have a few different species and I saw Ratels there in 2010. Also, Spectacled Langurs were in the Asian section. It's a real shame that the Sumatran Orangutan exhibit remains the same, as I thought it was god-awful back then and to still not have an outdoor enclosure is a crying shame. It's a bit perplexing that the zoo hasn't made it a priority to fundraise for a new orang exhibit, or phase out the species in favour of a smaller Asian primate. Oh, that's right, the AZA has hardly any Asian monkeys left anywhere. They've disappeared faster than elephants.

Fort Wayne has the Javan gibbons, which are… actually probably better off in their current habitats. Huh. I’m sure they could get something interesting to fill the gap, even if they had to go to mainland Southeast Asia or the Philippines rather than Indonesia itself.

 

[JVM]

Fort Wayne sounds really cool overall. It's interesting to me that almost all of the species in the Central Zoo area sound to be from the Americas, aside from the penguins and tortoises, who do have close equivalents that would fit that geographic theme. Shame if the penguin and pinniped exhibits really are that lacking in depth. I really hope it's bad optics making them look smaller! The swamp areas sound like they make the African area more unique; I really loved the one at Indy so I'd be curious to compare with Fort Wayne. The boardwalk at Asia Trek also sounds like a cool highlight. Also sounds like all of their biogeographic areas are good at integrating birds and reptiles alongside the mammals.

This is the only renovation that I think actively made the original worse. It basically only put in a play area, traded one big aviary for a few smaller ones and a kid’s splash area, closed an old building for smaller species, and turned a nocturnal house into a petting area for stingrays from the Atlantic Ocean. I guess it looks prettier now? It’s a little hard but I’ll try to be objective towards what’s there now, not what was

Listen, even Fort Wayne Zoo knows that Australia is their weak link. On their own website it recommends going to only Africa and Central Zoo if you have a few hours, add Asia Trek if you have time, and then Australia and the farm. I just can’t see it getting any work until the Central Zoo and Asia Trek renovations are completed. I know koalas are probably unrealistic but I really hope the stingray touch pool gets replaced by echidnas, or tree kangaroos, or something. I would take emu and wallaby in the kangaroo walkthrough. It just doesn’t feel like this wing has enough as is.

I agree it sounds a little lacking and missing something, and considering Fort Wayne has had extensive connections to Australia for an AZA facility it's a huge shame from the sound of it. I definitely get why they added what they did - stingray tanks make for great experiences for casual guests and they probably wanted it near the other aquatics - but a new building could have probably sufficed over replacing a nocturnal house. it's a shame they replaced it. Is there room for new development off the Australia section without replacing or deconstructing things?

 

[Persephone]

@JVM Australia could be expanded into the parking lot if they were willing to move some things around or build a bridge over the log ride. Beyond that there’s an empty, hilly plot they could potentially use for something. The splash area could also be subsumed for a larger exhibit but I can’t see them doing it.

 

[Persephone]

I usually take the summer off from bigger trips since I don’t like heat or crowds. Maybe I do some smaller local trips in the meantime. I figured I’d get out to Ohio to see how Elepahant Trek and Columbus’s North American renovation turned out. Today was Cincinnati, so let’s talk about that.

Cincinnati Zoo

This used to be my favorite zoo back when I’d only visited ~10. Now it’s only my third favorite AZA facility in Ohio. In fairness, Columbus and the Wilds are in my top three. Cincinnati would be the best in Indiana or Kentucky if it was just across the county line.

Cincinnati is a very historic zoo with historic buildings, a decent amount of rarities, and mostly perfectly fine habitats. There are a couple that stand out. Most are decent to good by the standards of an upper third AZA zoo.

I do like the zoo. It’s really good on the whole and I struggle to fit literally all of it into a single day. It’s in my top ten conventional zoos out of ~50. It just doesn’t really blow me away in any single regard.

Roo Valley

The last time I went to Cincinnati, this didn’t exist. I know it’s gotten some hate on this site for replacing the Conservation Valley (?). Honestly, though, I didn’t like the old exhibits much. Admittedly, I saw it after its prime. They still felt dated with a mediocre collection. Kangaroo walkthroughs are popular and this one felt perfectly fine. Certainly better landscaped than most. It does suffer from not having emus, wallabies, waterfowl, or any of the other occasional additions to these walkthroughs. In fairness, I’m not sure there’s really space.

Weirdly enough, the kangaroos were really active. I saw almost all of them hopping, including across the paths. I think this is the most active I have seen kangaroos in my entire life. A staff member suggested it wasn’t exactly normal.

There’s also a little blue penguin exhibit that’s really good. It has a lot of water, a sandy beach, and a ton of adorable penguins. There are also a few waterfowl species from Australia and New Zealand and it’s an actual aviary. I love it when traditionally clipped birds get at least the chance to fly, even if the exhibit doesn’t really give them a reason to get off the ground.

Right next to Roo Valley are two older raptor exhibits built into the valley side. This gives them a lot of verticality. The Andean condor exhibit is perfectly fine. The sea eagle aviary is really wide, pretty tall, and has a mix of cliff side and larger trees to perch and build a nest in. It even had viewing on two levels. This is one of the zoo’s finest exhibits in my opinion.

Reptile House and Friends

There’s a bald eagle exhibit here that doesn’t really fit into any other area. It’s presumably for injured birds so there isn’t any netting. It’s pretty good for a ground-based exhibit with a lot of space, some shallow water, and a few perches.

The old reptile house is a historic building that mostly holds up for its current inhabitants. Little skeptical of the anole-snake mix. Still wish they didn’t have a Chinese alligator in the middle. I think it would be perfectly good as a native turtle gallery. I also wish the larger snakes had more room, but that’s a pretty common gripe from me. There are a handful of US native species that aren’t common in Midwestern collections but I don’t think anything in here is unmissable. You visit this building more for the history and architecture than the collection.

There’s also a Galapagos tortoise exhibit outside that’s perfectly fine and I really don’t have much to say about it.

Night Hunters

This is my favorite subheading worthy section of the zoo. I love small mammals so much. Are some of the exhibits here a bit small? Yeah. The clouded leopard and maybe the fishing cat should get phased out (or moved to the current clouded leopard exhibit in the latter’s case.) This is still the only building I did two laps off and I seriously considered a third.

I had thought the aardwolf had passed and was delighted to see them. Heaven only knows when I’ll get the chance to see another. The aardvark was close to the glass. There was an encounter of some sort where some people came in and got to pet it. That woke them up a little bit and they seemed into it. Their snout and tongue are so fascinating.

I saw the savannah pouched rat but did not see them awake. This is my biggest ‘miss’ by far for the trip.

Having five cat species on display at a time (ocelot/clouded leopard, Pallas, sand, black-footed, fishing) makes for a really great area. Add in fennec foxes, genets, and a surprisingly active ringtail and you get just about everything I’d want in this kind of building.

The only species of bat currently on display are vampire bats, who have two good-sized exhibits. There aren’t any bats elsewhere in the zoo. Feels a bit weird, but hardly trip-ruining.

Cat Canyon

The cougar has a slightly above-average exhibit. The snow leopard has one that is above average with a few climbing opportunities and a fair bit of floor pace. The bar is on the floor for both species, though. The tiger exhibits are fine but nothing remarkable. One was sleeping right against the glass. For some reason there is an Eurasian eagle owl here. I know that Night Hunters is sort of just an appendage of the Cat Canyon complex but I like it a lot more.

Gorilla World

Gorilla World is fine. The colobus monkey enclosure is fine. The outdoor exhibit is actually pretty lush. The indoor one has some good climbing opportunities. I don’t know, I really don’t have a lot of thoughts on this one. It is a perfectly fine way to display gorillas.

Wings of the World

I ended up at one of the entrances right before a show and thought, sure, why not? It’s a lot of birds in pretty quick succession with a trick and a fact for each. It’s a mix of parrots, raptors, and hornbills. None of the species are terribly rare. I thought one part with a black vulture was funny. The rest felt a little too kid-focused for my tastes. It’s probably worth a watch if you find yourself in the right place at the right time.

Insect House

I don’t know what this is formally called because there was literally no signage at the entrance and I’m too lazy to check online.

There aren’t a lot of zoo insect houses in the Midwestern U.S. There’s St. Louis, Omaha, Cincinnati, (weirdly enough) Lincoln Children’s Zoo, and kind of Toledo. After that you’re mostly lucky to have a few species in a ‘discovery building.’

I’m not sure if Cincinnati is necessarily my favorite over St. Louis. Clears the Nebraska ones. Probably beats Toledo in scale if nothing else. I didn’t have a lot of time to pay attention to the signage because I got into Cincinnati twenty minutes after opening and only barely had time to see everything I cared to while skimming the signage. There are some real stars like the goliath beetle, Florida orb weavers, sunburst diving beetle & toe biter, the ever-lovely pond skimmers, and the many mantids and stick insects. The final leafcutter ant setup is also iconic. I was a little surprised by some of the species present and absent. There’s only one tarantula and the species isn’t even signed. A lot of mantids. Two terrarium setups for leafcutters but not other ants. No (signed) molluscs, crustaceans, or worms. A fair few vertebrates. The naked mole rats I understand. I kind of get the various lizards and frogs since they eat insects, although I wish those spaces went to actual inverts. One reptile exhibit is fine. Dart frogs get a pass because their most notable feature comes from their insect diet.

There are also a few birds in the butterfly aviary but they mostly stay out of site. There is no physical signage in the butterfly house for the butterflies. Just a QR code I didn’t scan. There were a surprising amount of butterflies in the relatively small space, though, which did leave an impression.

I was expecting this to be a nightmare. The zoo was crowded and insect houses can become a slog when only one person can look at a terrarium at a time. There was certainly some waiting here, but it was actually better than the reptile house. There isn’t any vertical stacking and most terrariums are wide enough for three or more people to look at a time. I imagine fewer people are drawn to insect houses than reptile houses. Which is a shame because there are some really pretty creatures in here.

Dragons

There’s a perfectly fine lemur island. Than the dragon exhibit itself. There are a few terrariums inside which include a blue tree monitor. Not entirely sure I’ve seen them before but it also probably wouldn’t have left a big impression. Armadillo lizards are also pretty rare in this neck of the woods. The juvenile Komodo dragon exhibit with climbing opportunities was welcome, even if it comes at the cost of Nile monitors. I like that the adult exhibit has zebra finches flying around inside. They were a lot more fun to watch than the actual namesake of the complex, who was being a typical lizard and doing very little. I do not know why their outdoor exhibit was stolen by demoiselle cranes. I like demoiselle cranes. Just feels a little odd.

Elephant Trek

I’ll talk more about Africa later, but I always felt like it never quite rose to the level of the signature exhibit Cincinnati deserved. Well, it finally got one.

I want to be clear: this isn’t America’s best elephant exhibit. Still the best one in easy driving distance. The exhibits are fairly large and have a fair few pools and unique feeders. They aren’t really anything much to look at, but that turns the focus to the elephants themselves.

I may have forgotten how big a bull elephant was. I don’t think I’ve seen one since last year’s trip out to Columbus. Some of the cows were getting fed by keepers through the fence and that also put their size into perspective.

The three exhibits at Siamang Point are good. The siamang exhibit itself is decently sized and has mesh walls and a lot of brachiation opportunities. They were quite active when I saw them but rarely on the ground. I suppose that’s a sign of a successful gibbon exhibit.

The hornbill exhibit was outdoors and had more space than they usually get, so that’s a success.

The otter exhibit is pretty big with a lot of land space relative to the usual for the species. The otters themselves were off exhibit.

There’s also a pheasant / magpie aviary by the barn that’s pretty tall but not very wide.

The landscaping around Elephant Trek is generally great. The signage seemed to focus a lot on how people and elephants interact but, again, I skimmed it. This isn’t a groundbreaking exhibit, but it’s a lot better than what the elephants had before and is generally pretty great for what it is. This is almost certainly going to be rivaling Africa for the signature exhibit for the general public.

Manatee Springs

The complex starts with a lush greenhouse containing adequate enclosure for American alligators and crocodiles. There’s then a hallway with some herps, including the obligatory but appreciated alligator snapping turtle and a lovely green anole. And then it’s onto the reason this building exists.

I do not know why more zoos and aquariums don’t try for manatees. They are adorable. They seem to be ever-popular. They need a lot less space than cetaceans and keeping rehab animals served an actual conservation purpose. The aquarium itself is nothing special but it has three manatees and they’re the perfect combination of big and squishy and ugly-cute and kind of bad at being alive and they’re almost certainly my favorite animal in the zoo. There are also some gars. I don’t think most people noticed them. Hard to compete with manatees.

There are a few more terrariums for Florida herps, including both sirens and amphiumas. The two largest exhibits after the manatees have a mix of fish and turtles and a surprisingly large and lush piedmont exhibit with just a grey rat snake. I liked that one. The plants were pretty.

There’s a Mexican grey wolf exhibit being built next door. The exhibit will be a good fit for the species, even if red wolf might mesh better with Manatee Springs.

Jungle Trails

I will give jungle trails this: I like rainforest complexes set inside a pretty dense forest area. They certainly deliver on that.

The complex consists of two buildings centered around indoor-outdoor great ape exhibits with a variety of smaller exhibits dotting the trails. None of the smaller exhibits are really that impressive for the species except for maybe the tortoise and mixed(?) Neotropical primates. They’re all adequate. Except maybe the curassow. That felt a little small, but I’ve seen similar birds in smaller aviaries. Frankly, I’m just relieved the macaws got a mesh aviary they could fly / climb around.

The outdoor exhibits have some really great species non-ABC species like Sifaka, helmeted curassow, and Burmese mountain tortoise. There are also at least three gibbon species here, plus two elsewhere in the zoo, for five gibbon species total. Add in three great apes for eight apes. Then three Neotropical primates, one (?) old world monkey and five prosimians for seventeen primate species.

I like the buildings well enough. Asia is really just indoor gibbon and gibbon / orangutan viewing a few connected exhibits for pygmy slow loris. It’s not really trying to be a big production. The Africa building has two prosimians in a mixed species exhibit, a mid-sized aviary and, most importantly, aye-aye. And both aye-aye were active. I love the little gremlins so much. Probably my second favorite species at the zoo, after the manatees.

Uh the outdoor great ape exhibits are also perfectly fine. The bonobos actually have a good deal of space for an outdoor bonobo exhibit. They never really seem to get a lot. There was a baby bonobo and it was so very cute. The orangutan exhibit would be greatly improved with increased climbing opportunities. The ground space isn’t a problem, the arboreal space kind of is.

Wings of the World

This isn’t my favorite bird house. It’s perfectly good for what it is. The initial South American aviary is of a pretty good size. Most of the species list is fairly basic, but then there are downy woodpeckers and jacanas. I did not see the woodpeckers as I was unsure if I would have time to see the rest of the zoo if I waited in the muggy heat until I saw some fairly small birds in a lush aviary.

I haven’t seen Inca terns in a rainforest exhibit before. Not sure why they were in there rather than the outdoor walkthrough or something.

Victoria crowned pigeons are always a delight. One was showing off a stick they had found. Maybe nest building is around the corner? Other than the Guam rails (which I also didn’t see) the Asia aviary also wasn’t really anything special.

I’m always happy to see puffins. I think far more zoos should have puffins, especially when outdated indoor penguin exhibits get replaced. Speaking of, I do not understand how Cincinnati has two superb outdoor penguin enclosures and a cramped indoor one. I really hope that goes to the puffins / murres / guillemots / ducks eventually.

The outdoor aviary was closed but I saw basically all the species I wanted to from the public viewing area or elsewhere in the zoo. Cool that there are ring-billed gulls in it. I think they’re large, active, intelligent birds that could really use more exhibits. I understand why the coastal zoos wouldn’t bother, though. I can just go to the beach if I want to see them in abundance.

Central Zoo

The remains of rhino reserve, wolf woods, the penguin exhibit, some random Asian exhibits, and the children’s zoo are all getting thrown together as “that part of the map where the perfect little loop system breaks down completely and also I don’t think the zoo knows what’s going on here.”

I hadn’t remembered the old sea lion exhibit being that shallow. I was actually looking forward to seeing penguins with completely underwater viewing windows for the third(?) time after Detroit and Wonders of Wildlife. The latter barely counts. Turns out, no. The African penguins still have a lot of land area. There are also waterfowl and cormorants, this time without a proper aviary. I like cormorants. The African penguins weren’t being as active / vocal as the blue penguins, but I still sat down in front of them and ate some ice cream for a bit while I cooled down and rested.

The former nursery is now an ambassador animal building with below average exhibits for common species. The bearcats also got moved to an admittedly better exhibit in Night Hunters.

The children’s zoo proper consists of a goat yard, a second ambassador yard that I don’t think I’ve ever seen filled, and a barnyard area that closes at 3:00. I did not get there before 3:00 so I cannot tell you what is in there.

Pro tip: one of the windows across from the goats has newly hatched chicks. It’s a kind of dark room so you have to purposefully look into the windows to see it.

Wolf woods has a set of four perfectly acceptable exhibits for red-tailed hawk, barred owl, river otters, and Mexican wolves. The wolf was hiding under a wooden platform. I am glad they’re getting a larger, shadier exhibit. No idea what happens to this complex after they leave. I wouldn’t be too sad to see it go.

Only one of the gibbon isles is occupied. It’s not the best I’ve seen but does have some nice verticality and an okay amount of space. The red pandas were not out in either of their enclosures. One of them has real trees, though, which does give cool opportunities to see them climb.

The zebra, okapi, flamingo, and bongo exhibits are all perfectly fine but not terribly impressive. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if Rhino Reserve is done in altogether, either, although I would prefer the zoo kept at least one rhino species. I did notice that the okapi exhibit was very shady, which I cannot say for all enclosures I’ve seen for the species. It made for a cool experience to see how their stripes meshed with the narrow bands of sunlight reaching the ground.

Africa

This area feels like it should work more than it does. To start with, there are two cheetah exhibits. One is perfectly good for the cats. The other is a fairly massive arena that I did not swing by this time. This is good. The lion exhibit’s also fine. I really like the painted dog exhibit. The meerkat exhibit is also pretty big for the species, even if it’s not on Nashville’s level.

Everything else either feels like or is kind of a disaster. The seven birds-one mammal savannah yard is infamous but genuinely kind of hilarious. And cool. I guess you don’t need to worry about your clipped birds getting trampled on the savannah if there aren’t any mammals to trample them. I did not see the kudu at all and that just made things funnier for me. Jokes aside, I do love ostrich, pelicans, and guineafowl so the exhibit didn’t feel like a waste. It’s just underachieving to an impressive degree.

I had also forgotten how big proper hippos are. They really are enormous and it’s such a shame that I’ve only seen maybe three exhibits that I thought gave them adequate space. I know why they’re moving the giraffes into the old elephant enclosure, but a part of me really wishes it was getting retrofitted for hippos. Their current pond is not big enough to have four enormous mammals galloping around.

The current giraffe exhibit is perfectly fine, bordering on good, if it wasn’t for the problems they’ve apparently had with the barn.

Other Stuff

I skipped the discovery center since there was nothing else that way and the last time I went it just had some plants and a sloth. Please let me know if I should visit it when I return to see the bear / otter exhibit.

There’s a miscellaneous red-crowned crane exhibit by swan lake that’s perfectly fine. I did not see the swans on swan lake.

Cincinnati does not have enough bathrooms. I did not find one that was not backed up out the door until hour four of my visit. Elephant Trek did introduce a ton of bathrooms, but those aren’t really in the corner of the zoo where they’re most sorely needed (Insect House to Entrance). It could also use a few more water fountains.

I ate lunch there. It was good cafeteria food served almost disturbingly fast. It was not immediately clear how to get my drink after ordering at the kiosk and I saw many other people confused. Price was certainly high but not a crime against humanity.

The pathways and viewing areas were mostly pretty broad. I only really felt overcrowded in the reptile house and parts of Night Hunters despite the holiday weekend.

The parking lots have solar panel canopies that keep the cars beneath them cool. Nice feature.


Columbus tomorrow. Probably won’t be able to see it all, even if I get to rope drop it. Will be prioritizing North America and the reptile house since it’s new / I didn’t get to see it last time, respectively. Will only give a detailed review for the reptile house and North America since there’s already a review of the zoo on Page 3 of this thread.

 

[Persephone]

Columbus Zoo

And we’re back. I got to see the entire zoo this time, including three areas I didn’t review last time. Let’s run through those to start.

North America Trek

Well, I did review half of this last time, but a lot had changed.

The new exhibits start with a new North American river otter exhibit with a lot of water and a surprising amount of land. I thought the old otter exhibit was pretty good, but this is an improvement.

The new wolf exhibit is built into a hillside. As far as wolf exhibits go it’s pretty open. I’m sure the wolves could hide, but it wouldn’t be as easy as it is in many other exhibits. The entire pack was zooming around the place when I was there. The enclosure did give them space to do it. The rockwork throughout this complex is pretty good, as are the parkitecture-inspired buildings.

I will talk about the as-yet-unopened songbird aviary later.

The swans do have a proper aviary now and it is a lot bigger than their old space. Not quite the swan lake enclosure many zoos are fond of, but about as much as a normal waterfowl of that size could expect. The enclosure doesn’t really give them a reason to fly even if they can. It’s rather flat.

The black bear exhibit is an improvement over the last one even if it still isn’t an all time great bear enclosure. One thing that irked me is that there is indoor viewing for the black bears… but it’s a set of tiny windows. That got really congested when the bear was inside, meaning you had to wait a few minutes for a few seconds of viewing. In all honesty I’d rather they not have those windows.

The conservation center is very good for what it is with some lovely snakes and salamanders. There are also hellbenders in the reptile house so it’s a bit redundant, but perfectly fine. Maybe they’ll replace the reptile house enclosure in time.

Red foxes have moved into the old lynx enclosure and the wolverines are in the old bear exhibit. These are really good spaces for their respective species. The otter and swan exhibits are empty. You really wouldn’t be able to tell the swan exhibit held animals unless you already knew.

I guess the farm is part of North America Trek so uh. It’s a farm? There was a big, fluffy sheep I got to pet for a while. The miniature cows had more space than non-Ankole cattle tend to get in zoos. No other domestics I could see. A perfectly fine petting zoo with no real frills.

The cougar exhibit is still much, much better than the poor cats usually get and I genuinely don’t think it needs changes. There were three cats. One was moving, two were cuddling. The old wolverine enclosure belongs to the lynx now and it’s generally fine for the species.

The moose and reindeer could probably use some more space when they renovate the other half of the complex. The Asian and African hoofstock get a lot more space relative to their size. I wouldn’t mind if they phased out the reindeer. I get they’re a link to Polar Frontier, but they’re a domestic. Woodland caribou seem like a lost cause in the AZA at this point.

Okay so not the hottest of takes, but the new songbird aviary is going to be a downgrade. The old one is so much more densely planted in and out of the aviary walls. It’s surrounded by forest so all of it feels quiet and shady. The new space is right by a major thoroughfare and has little shade beyond some tarps on the roof. It’s really going for more of a savannah vibe and that’s fine but it seems like they have more forest birds. I hope they at least keep the old aviary and give it to porcupines or turkeys or something, probably not as a walkthrough.

Reptile House

Again, this isn’t the kind of zoo where I have the luxury of reading all the signage. This got pretty congested, too, given the crowds. I wouldn’t say there’s anything in here that’s exceedingly rare, iconic, or some combination of the two. The temple turtles probably come the closest. I really like the large turtle aquariums. Missed the Lake Erie water snakes, which I suppose might be their biggest rarity on the subspecific level. Did see the trinket snake. Asian colubrids don’t have a lot of AZA rep so that’s nice to see.

So. Yeah. Doesn’t really have the history of Cincinnati’s or the tuataras and salties of Toledo. It’s perfectly fine for what it is. Seems to have good signage on reptiles as a whole, even if the species specific signage is a little basic. This is one of the last things I would prioritize in a visit.

Discovery Reef

This is the actual last thing I would prioritize. It got really cramped. Species specific signage was bad to nonexistent. I like black clownfish and garden eels. Zebra sharks are always fun. If you ever go to bigger aquariums, this one can probably be skipped.

Congo Expedition

This is an old complex fresh off some renovations. It’s really, really good. It starts with an aviary for a whole flock of African greys next to a perfectly good colobus exhibit. The African walkthrough aviary is probably the weakest of the three main aviaries, but it was pretty peaceful. I don’t think many people realized they could go into this one on the elevated path. The species list has a few fun ones like bald ibis, black crake, and bustards mixed in with tortoises and the usual African aviary birds.

The leopard exhibit is good. Has more furnishings than most exhibits and a decent amount of space. The mandrill exhibit is really solid with a lot of young monkeys. I had forgotten how large adult males were. In some ways the species felt more impressive than the bonobos. I certainly enjoyed watching them more.

Columbus’s outdoor gorilla area has a decent amount of space and a ton of climbing opportunities. It really goes in an entirely different direction than the outdoor plain with some bushes and trees design philosophy of most zoos. Looks super unnatural but it seems to work. Saw the baby gorilla. Very cute.

Weirdly, the bonobo exhibit feels a lot more like a traditional outdoor gorilla enclosure. I did not see the bonobo using it as they appeared to be locked inside despite the weather. It’s very lush with a pretty water feature.

The okapi exhibits at the end are shady and fairly large. All in all, it’s an excellent complex.

The Rest of the Zoo

There’d a baby elephant in Asia Quest. The line to see them is massive. Do not wait in it. You can see the baby decently enough from the main trail of Asia Quest.

The sloth bear was once again asleep and positioned like he was about to fall down the stairs. The red pandas were both in the trees. One climbed up and down while I was there. I did get to see both markhor this time. They were smaller than I expected.

The cheetahs were in the watering hole at 11:00. Not what I was hoping for, but they were reasonably active and it’s nice to see them have a large amount of space. The vervet monkeys were off exhibit.

Polar Frontier is still great.

Didn’t see the Tazzies. Did see the kiwi and a sleeping wombat. There are a borderline unreasonable amount of sea dragons in their aquarium and I love it. There was a massive line for the kangaroo walkthrough once when I walked by and then it was a walk-in in the next time. Koalas were doing typical koala things (nothing). Couldn’t justify the wait to get into the lorikeet aviary.

The islands part of Australia and the islands isn’t bad but it’s also not that great. The orangs have a fair bit of outdoor space with a climbing structure spanning it. The otter exhibit and gibbon island are nice. It’s cool that the Komodo dragon theoretically has an outdoor area, even if I never see them using it. The Australia half of the complex absolutely carries it, though.

Manatees are great. Mixing them with sea turtles and stingrays in a very atmospheric building makes it all the better. Having a very large adult just perfects the experience. I adore this building. It’s one of my favorites.

The sea lion area didn’t impress me as much this time. It’s still probably my third favorite for the species, though. I just thought the rippling lights in the tunnel were super disorienting.

Jack Hannah’s Animal Encounter Village has such weird theming that it loops back around to being amazing in a kind of campy way. Obviously, tolerances for camp vary. I saw the skunks active. The sand cat exhibit is genuinely pretty good if you can look past the theming and see it as a mix of climbing structures, beds, and toys. Sadly, no luck with the Geoffrey’s cats.

The capyabaras were being held singly in separate exhibits. I have seen a lot of singly held capybara lately. Is this a trend or just a string of coincidences?

The Obligatory Part Where Persephone Talks About Food

I had some corn ribs in Heart of Africa and they were pretty good. Nice sauces and well cooked corn. It’s not a 1:1 meat substitute but it’s a nice snack nonetheless.

I think my main meal may have been my worst zoo food experience kind of by default? I planned to go to Congo Food Court at 2. The line was out the door. I went through Congo Expedition and looped back.

The first three things on the menu I wanted weren’t on the touchscreen options so I ordered one (1) personal cheese pizza. I gave up on waiting after thirty-five minutes and did a lap of Australia and the Islands.

I got a text saying my food was ready about 75 minutes after I ordered, again, one (1) personal cheese pizza. I did swing by to pick it up. The pizza was good. That’s almost besides the point. Do not eat here if the zoo is at all busy. It will literally be faster to walk to Heart of Africa, get food, eat it, and walk back. It will probably be faster (and definitely cheaper) to leave the zoo, eat, and come back.





Planning to do D.C. and Baltimore in October so I can see the Smithsonian one last time before its defenestration, but those plans might change if I end up moving cities next month. Still a little unclear what’s happening in my life.

 

[Persephone]

Planning to do D.C. and Baltimore in October so I can see the Smithsonian one last time before its defenestration, but those plans might change if I end up moving cities next month. Still a little unclear what’s happening in my life.

Job market’s brutal. Won’t be moving cities. But, uh, it’s not looking like the Smithsonian’s going to be open in two weeks. That’s okay. I’ll be going to Memphis instead, where surely nothing will occur that draws national attention to the city.

Only accredited facility there is the zoo. I will have three days in the city and a rental car. Planning to hit the pyramid, and a crystal cave in a graveyard. Maybe Graceland. I have no real attachment to Elvis, though. Anything else worth checking out and/or avoiding?

 

[Aardwolf]

Job market’s brutal. Won’t be moving cities. But, uh, it’s not looking like the Smithsonian’s going to be open in two weeks. That’s okay. I’ll be going to Memphis instead, where surely nothing will occur that draws national attention to the city.

Only accredited facility there is the zoo. I will have three days in the city and a rental car. Planning to hit the pyramid, and a crystal cave in a graveyard. Maybe Graceland. I have no real attachment to Elvis, though. Anything else worth checking out and/or avoiding?

There’s a museum at the site of MLK’s assassination. Even if you don’t have time to go inside or visit, you can still see the balcony where he was standing when he was killed very easily from the outside. Probably the most significant historical site in the city.

if you need some whimsy to cheer you up after that, there are the ducks at the Peabody Hotel with their daily appearance and all the pageantry that goes with it. The Botanical Gardens are also nice.

Im told Graceland is quite pricy. I just went and photographed the mansion from the outside and called it a day.

 

[Persephone]

I am too old for overnight trains. I was sleeping pretty poorly in the first few hours, then around midnight a very large woman sat next to me and took up half of my seat in addition to her own. The only way to sleep without touching a stranger was to be on my side pressed against the train wall.

Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got into Memphis and did not want to do the zoo. I was just doing smaller things to stall for time until I could check into my hotel and take a very long nap.

Memorial Park Cemetery

I was told there was a crystal cave in Memphis and it seemed like the kind of off the beaten path thing I had to see. It’s located in a well landscaped but otherwise fairly standard cemetery. Admission is free.

There are a few nice sculptures concentrated around the grotto, including a little pond that had some minnows and froglets. The inside of the grotto was mostly cloudy quartz. Religious artwork and dioramas lined the walls. A few parts were lit up in strange colors.

It was kind of underwhelming. Yes, it’s technically the crystalline cave I was promised, but it kind of just looks like an oddly textured one-room cave unless you really focus on the rocks. It’s free, and I found the landscaping calming and the other sculptures to be nice. Honestly it’s probably worth a visit if you’re on the east side of the metro. I just sat my expectations way too high.

Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid

Everyone I have heard talk about this place outside of Memphis just calls it the Bass Pro Pyramid. After visiting Wonders of Wildlife, I was very interested in how their other mega store stacked up. I knew this wasn’t a dedicated aquarium, but it did have an indoor cypress swamp.

It is probably the most impressive indoor cypress swamp I have seen. There’s only one competitor, but the finale of Kingdom of the Night is a very high bar. Most of the central floor of the pyramid is made up of a series of smaller ‘islands’ surrounded by water and linked to each other by faux wooden bridges. The ponds do not have any barriers separating them from the walking paths. Each pond is filled with fish, almost all from the American South. Some of the smaller ponds have sunfish and trout. The three largest ones are home to blue catfish, a variety of gars, and a mix of bass and sturgeon. The large ponds had some of the biggest blue catfish, alligator gar, and white sturgeon I have ever seen. There were multiple gar and sturgeon bigger than I am. The ponds are shallow, probably five or six feet in the deepest parts of the biggest ponds, but they have much more area than these fish usually get. The ponds themselves are fairly barren. No plantings, no caves, no depths to retreat to. Just the bridges for privacy. There was also no signage.

The only fenced off area was for juvenile alligators about three feet long. They had a good amount of land and water area for their size, but it was once again fairly barren. Finally there were two (or more) aquariums in the restaurants and an “educational aquarium” on the store floor.

I did not get a great look at the restaurant aquariums but they weren’t too big and the species seemed fairly standard. The educational aquarium at least had (outdated) signage listing species and appearance. None of the others did.

I am very torn on the lack of signage. I understand that it plays into the theming element. You are in a swamp. Swamps do not have detailed educational signage. This is a store, not an aquarium of museum. I still feel like it could be tailored to the needs of the place. Frame it as fishing advice carved into wooden planks listing the species, where it can be found, typical and maximum sizes, and any conservation or recreational importance it has. There was at least a lot of curiosity around the giants. Having signage for them and the bass (and also the wood ducks who may or may not be flighted) would be a start.

Surrounding the floor are two levels of retail, including a restaurant and a bowling alley. The line between the swamp and the store is very blurry. At one point boats for sale extended right to the water’s edge.

There’s also a hotel in the pyramid. The balcony (maybe the rooms, maybe a separate thing?) hangs above the store floor around the entire pyramid. The rooms look well themed in the advertising material. It’s pretty much the main selling point, alongside being in a giant Bass Pro Shop.

There is a glass elevator to the observation deck. It opens at 11:00 a.m., which I did not know, and costs $8. The views from the sky deck are good enough. It’s high enough to feel the height. Memphis just doesn’t quite have the same views as a city like Chicago.

There was a group of uniformed National Guard with me on the deck. I knew they were deployed to the city but it was really surreal to see soldiers patrolling the blasted out war zone of an oversized sporting goods store.

The really cool part of the elevator, and what I would recommend it for, is the slow realization of how tall the building you’re in is. The shop extends all the way to the restaurant and sky deck with no other floors in the way. You do not realize this inside. Other than a few cypress tree props there is nothing to draw your gaze up. The room is too darkly lit to really get an idea of its vertical scale.

Is it worth a trip? It’s worth it if you’re in Memphis, but it’s not worth the trip to Memphis if that makes sense.

National Civil Rights Museum

It’s a bit strange for a museum in that the artifacts are decidedly secondary to the written and audiovisual narrative. There are a few on display, mostly papers and different uniforms, but the real story is in the movies, audio clips, and abundance of writing and photos on the walls chronicling the civil rights movement from Africa to MLK’s assassination. I really enjoyed this. The museum recommends 1.5 to 2 hours to see the whole thing. I spent three and one of the two buildings wasn’t even open. I did not realize how many people were killed challenging the segregationists. The textbooks tend to reduce it to “and some people were attacked by dogs or water hoses and there were a few notable deaths.” Turns out that tons of people were murdered, many more were almost murdered, and the point of many protests was to peel off the Sourh’s veneer of civility by exposing the violence in such a way that everyone could see.

The museum is split into two buildings. One ends at the King assassination on the site where the museum is located. The other takes things from there. The latter was closed. I was very curious to see how they handled that. Might swing back if I ever find myself in Memphis.

The museum itself does not name King’s assassin. There’s a protest across the street insisting that the convicted gunman was framed and the killing was really done by a conspiracy between the mafia and the federal government. You can do your own research on that. I think the museum itself is evidence enough that one segregationist with a gun could certainly kill a civil rights activist.


At this point my lack of sleep really caught up to me and I got to my hotel. A little too late. My headache turned to a migraine and I’m still not 100% over twelve hours later. I’m going to at least attempt the Memphis Zoo today because I could plausibly see it taking me more than one day to get through. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I tap out after seeing half of it and go back to finish the job tomorrow. I’ve already seen the secondary attractions I wanted to.

 

[Persephone]

Memphis Zoo and Aquarium

And now we come to the entire reason I made this trip in the first place. As a kid I assumed this was one of America’s great zoos because they were one of four with pandas. While the pandas are gone now, I was looking forward to it because I’ve heard good things about the hippo area and Heard Things about the theming.

I don’t think this is one of America’s great zoos. Certainly not top four. I’m not convinced it’s the best zoo in its own state. The collection has some nice surprises here and there, but nothing on the level of America’s top three zoos. Most exhibits are of a size best described as adequate. There aren’t many I would point to as plainly inadequate, but also they have a lot that may need to be reworked if standards rise across the board.

It still very clearly stands out with its over the top cultural theming. These include a massive Egyptian themed entrance, a mock Chinese garden, scale replica of Old Faithful Inn, totem poles, and some good old ruined temple theming. It’s kind of a surprise when one of the trails doesn’t have some sort of cultural set piece. I’m actually a little confused by the purpose of some of them. There are at least two buildings that seem to exist almost solely for private events with two more that probably could host them. There has to be diminishing returns at some point, right? Their use as event space means that most of the prominent structures can’t actually contain much of anything on the inside.

I would put this above most zoos in cities of similar size, but it falls beneath the really good ones like Kansas City and Columbus.

Entrance

It’s common enough for zoos to have a gate or something to distinguish the entrance. Some have buildings. Memphis has a giant gate structure themed to the original city of Memphis complete with a mix of real and fake hieroglyphs. On the interior are obelisks and a few Egyptian themed buildings with… not very much in them. A coffee shop, a gift shop, and a cafe a friend who lived in the city told me was overrated. There’s also the first of the zoo’s 3+ splash pads here. Tickets can be purchased on site, but only from a cart that’s pretty easy to miss with the gate drawing the eye.

The only exhibit in this section is a decently sized and furnished gibbon exhibit with windows looking into the cafe. Signage indicated that the gibbons were fascinated by these windows. I saw one running and brachiating all over the exhibit around opening. After that both gibbons seemed to spend the day seated next to the window looking in. Primates watching primates watching primates.

Animals of the Night

Nocturnal houses usually end up being one of my favorite parts of the zoo. This one wasn’t really an exception, although there were a few things that I disliked. One that I didn’t is that the zoo opens with the day cycle on and switches to night at 10:30 or 11:30 (can’t remember). It’s close enough to the entrance that it’s easy to visit when you enter and when you leave to see it in both states. Between the two I got to see almost everything active and all but one species clearly. Unfortunately, the one species was the giant pouched rat. I did see them moving, but they were in a shadow during the night phase so it just looked like a slightly darker patch moving around.

The exhibit has a lot to love. Rarities include bulldog bats, banded palm civets, and giant pouched rat. Other notable species include sloths, crested and prehensile-tailed porcupines, large spotted genets, binturong, kinkajou, potto, Texas blind salamander, ringtail, and three armadillo species. I love nocturnal primates. I also think kinkajous are great. I understand why AZA zoos don’t frequently include them, but I do think they’re a great display animal and I am never upset to see them.

One of the two problems is sort of universal for old nocturnal houses: some of the exhibits are pretty small for their inhabitants. The crested porcupines in particular felt pretty cramped. This was especially irritating since that species could easily be moved to one of the Africa exhibits without taking up too much space. I hope they move out during the Veldt redevelopment.

The other annoyance were the mirrors. So many exhibit walls are mirrors and it did not help my headache. I get that it helps disguise the first problem, but I really wish they got painted over. Sometimes it helped me spot a species, but usually they were more irritating than helpful.

Overall, though, a great way to start and end my day.

Primate Canyon

I don’t have particularly strong opinions on most of this one. The gorilla exhibit was fine. The orangutan exhibit was nicer than they usually seem to get even today. I love that an orangutan presented with a sheet will spontaneously invent clothing. The two rarer primates mixed in (spot-nosed guenon and Sulawesi macaque) were a treat. The theming of the canyon is pretty, naturalistic, and not overly intrusive. It was actually some of my favorite in the zoo.

The nearby bonobo exhibit is way too small for even the smallest great ape. I get that every bonobo holder is needed so it isn’t going to be phased out, but it needs expanded or something. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t do that with Zambezi River Hippo Camp. Speaking of…

Zambezi River Hippo Camp

This seems to be the most praised part of the zoo, and yeah I agree. I don’t think it quite lived up to the hype, though.

The flamingo pool is of a good size and I’m always happy to see lesser flamingoes. The opening exhibits with mandrill, okapi, Dik Dik, and larger birds are decent enough for the interesting species they hold.

I found out I have been mispronouncing okapi for over twenty years. I ask that you please respect my privacy at this time.

Only one hippo was out in the camp’s eponymous exhibit so it was hard to get a true idea of its scale by seeing hippos actually able to spread out. It is probably the best hippo exhibit I’ve seen in the AZA but it’s more of a step above rather than a revolution. Maybe Disney’s is better. I really can’t remember. I also think Safari Niagara’s is pretty great from a space perspective, even if it is very minimalistic.

I thought the crocodile exhibit was pretty big for the species and I’m always happy to see nile crocs. I’m seeing more Orinoco crocs these days, but it does feel like non-native crocodiles are still rare in zoos.

There’s a lemur exhibit that looks like it was built as a walkthrough before being closed off. It holds both ruffed lemur species. The view from the main path was blocked off so it was only visible from the hippo camp trail.

Teton Trek

This looks bigger in photographs. I was pretty disappointed to find that there was nothing of note in the lodge. It’s such an eye-catching structure that you’d figure there would be something. Even the views of the bear exhibit from the balcony are obstructed by trees. It is a good bear exhibit, though. Nice water feature and a fair bit of space. One of my favorite brown bear exhibits. The backdrop with the waterfall and elevated trail through the rocks is also good. In contrast, the wolf exhibit was underwhelming. It’s not bad. Perfectly fine for the species. I’m just used to wolves getting more than “perfectly fine” I suppose. And I’m spoiled by Brookfield.

The waterfowl area with swans, pelicans, and cranes was big enough that I couldn’t clearly see where it ended. The birds were still all clustered in the same space. All three are charismatic. Not sure how they deal with the swan being around the other two, though.

The rockwork here is really good. It’s half the point of the exhibit. I also liked the signage on the actual Tetons and the national park service. The elk exhibit is good but not great. I’m happy there were porcupines at the end in a pretty good habitat for them. That’s three porcupine species in the zoo.

Northwest Passage

The trail opens with a totem pole and the full text of that one Chief Seattle speech I keep seeing excerpts from at zoos. Theming an an arctic exhibit to the tribes of the PNW is hardly ground breaking, but I did think the signage and execution were better here than I’ve seen in the past. I thought the black bear exhibit was a little weak. The aviary for bald eagles and ravens was pretty good, though, with a few high perches. The raven used it to get above the eagles. I thought the sea lion and polar bear exhibits were fine. Not winning any awards, but not in dire need of replacement.

African Veldt

Every other trail in this zoo is a loop off of the main looping path. Then there’s this one random area that requires backtracking. Thanks, I hate it.

I have seen worse elephant exhibits but it’s probably for the best that it’s getting an upgrade soon. Really the entire Veldt seems like an anachronism for the zoo. No cultural theming. Just (relatively) big open spaces. The giraffe and mixed hoofstock exhibits were fine. The ostrich pen felt too small. I actually really liked the bongo and red river hog exhibit, but there was a keeper in it so I couldn’t see the animals. It’s rare to see a suid exhibit that isn’t entirely dirt and mud.

Curious to see what becomes of this. It wouldn’t have been my number one pick for a renovation in the zoo, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.

China

Memphis’s other signature trail. I did not like this one as much.

For those keeping a bingo card at home, here’s the food review. There was an Asian themed tater tot stand. I had to try this. I got one with tots, chicken, cabbage, crispy noodles, and chipotle sauce. It was really good and reasonably priced by the standards of zoo food. I would eat this again.

I found it curious that this was one of the only trails with a ‘correct’ entrance. I’m guessing that was for crowd control when they had pandas. It wasn’t too crowded during my visit. None of the zoo was. This was pretty surprising given the nice weather.

The entire area is themed to a Chinese garden, starting with a pagoda set piece. The initial exhibits for waterfowl and otters / gibbons are pretty. I do wish the gibbons had more climbing space to stay above the otters, though. The old panda yard was unoccupied during my visit. I do see why they and Atlanta aren’t getting pandas back. Their yards feel like a big step down from the Smithsonian’s. The old dayrooms are home to red pandas and clouded leopards. They’re fine enough, but I really wish they had rotating access to the outdoor yard. Actually, I wish the clouded leopards had access to the outdoor yard and the banded palm civets moved here. There’s already another, much better red panda exhibit in this zoo.

The waterfowl garden is very pretty but also poorly signed. For animals. The plants did have signage. I will allow it just for the novelty.

There are a few small aviaries and a langur exhibit that are all perfectly fine and not particularly remarkable. The same goes for the Père David’s deer yard, which was shady but barren.

Overall the area was pretty but not very remarkable without its former stars.

Herpetarium

For what it’s worth, this and the tropical bird house need updates more than the Veldt. Same for cat country.

It’s a fairly standard reptile house with a lot of smaller terrariums and a few mid-size or big ones. Pakistani pond turtles are both the rarest and one of the largest species here. There are three tiny crocodilian ponds. One has baby Chinese alligators so it works. The others are a little small even by the standards of dwarf crocodile exhibits. I would probably either skip this entirely or just see the turtles, alligators, and larger snakes if I came back.

Lair of the Dragon

Oh thank god I was worried that with all these lodges and gardens we weren’t going to have any ruined temple aesthetics. It’s actually pretty moderate here, though, and the land is a nice throwback to win Komodo dragons were a rarity that headlined their own complexes. The dragons were shut inside despite the weather. This was a shame. The indoor areas are fine. Some of the outdoor areas are pretty nice for the lizards. Not the best I’ve seen, but certainly better than the dayrooms. The signage does discuss their native, common, and scientific names which is cool. There are also exhibits for the two giant tortoises, radiated tortoises, and two empty pens out front. I don’t have much to say about them.

Aquarium

This is almost certainly a protected building that they couldn’t do anything to change if they wanted to. That’s a shame because I do not like this aquarium. The signs were electronic, covered multiple exhibits on a rotating loop, and frequently seemed either incomplete or inaccurate. This was frustrating as the narrow viewing areas and small space basically forced me to move at the pace of the crowd. Nothing in particular stood out. I like the Australian lungfish, I guess, and I’m never mad to see arowana or ripsaw cats. Or alligator snapping turtles. The signage in Primate Canyon hinted there was also one there, but I did not see it. A lot of the tank windows were dirty enough it was hard to see through. Is this my least favorite zoo aquarium? Probably, yeah. Moving on.

Once Upon A Farm

This is a zoo farm. It’s a pretty farm with a nice water feature in the middle. I like that it emphasizes (endangered) heritage breeds. I got to pet a cow. The enclosures are a little bigger than some zoo farms I’ve seen. Still not as big as non-domesticated animals of the same size would get. The signs talked about when and where animals were domesticated. I liked that. The expo pavilion was another big building with nothing much in it. There was an exhibit with pop-up bubbles that seemed to be empty.

Stingray Cove?

I thought this had opened this year. Guess not. It’s blocked off. Oh well. I would not have postponed my visit a year to touch a stingray.

While here I will comment that the round barn no longer exists. It has been replaced by a zip line with a very loud breaking system that I can’t imagine the nearby animals enjoy. Ordinarily I don’t mind attractions like this. Zoos can either give people the opportunity to pay more money if they want or raise ticket prices for everyone. It also gives kids something to do in addition to the playground, train and multiple splash pads. This one did bother me as it replaced a historic animal exhibit and the breaking system ground on me in the few minutes I was sitting nearby eating novelty deep-frozen ice cream product. I cannot imagine how the animals feel.

Penguin Rock

I did not know this place had one of America’s best penguin exhibits. It has a full circuit for swimming and lots of (water) space. I’m not sure how much of the land area they can climb on. If the answer is “almost all of it” then it’s probably the best African Penguin exhibit I’ve seen. There weren’t actually that many penguins, though. I only saw six. That’s a weirdly small colony size, right? Especially for an enclosure this big?

Tropical Bird House

This holds up better than the Herpetarium or Aquarium. It could still really benefit from a renovation. The opening hall is fairly small enclosures for one to two species of bird each. The top of the cage is paneled off to give the birds some privacy, but you can still see them if you crouch. It’s a good mix of pretty species and one with conservation value. There are two larger aviaries. One is for hornbills, trumpeters, whistling ducks, and hamerkop. It was, as usual, perfectly fine. The other was a walkthrough aviary with a mix of tropical species. It had a surprisingly limited area actually accessible to visitors. I still saw most of the species I wanted to. The ones that were signed, anyway. Quite a few seemed to be unsigned. Cotingas and whydahs are great and I’m always happy to see pigeons and doves.

The entire second row of aviaries were “temporarily” closed.

Cat Country

“She’s just going to say the spotted cats don’t have enough space.”

And I will stop saying it when it stops being true. Add in the mountain lion here as well. Most of t climbing cats did at least have verticality and some had areas where they could look out from the highest places at something beyond the exhibit. I liked the fishing cat and caracal exhibits. Lions and tigers felt like they were scraping against “adequate.” This complex is part of what I mean by Memphis struggling if standards get raised too much for large carnivores. The black bears, wolves, half the nocturnal house, and basically all the cats stand out. Except the cheetahs and the small cats in Cat Country. They’re fine.

As for the land’s strengths, the cave into the mountain lion / jaguar viewing was really cool. The red panda exhibit was great. Turns out all they need is a really big tree to climb. The capybara was a welcome surprise. They seemed to be alone, though. Why am I seeing so many zoos with single capybaras lately? I also thought the meerkat enclosure was pretty good. Certainly lively. They’re very good display animals.



I have no idea what I’m doing tomorrow. I do have to leave the hotel around noon. I’ll probably stay there until then. After that… I don’t know? Botanical gardens? Take in the vibes downtown? Maybe drive past Graceland. I kind of did all the stuff I had planned for tomorrow on the first day. I guess I could theoretically get out to Little Rock and save myself the later trip, but I was hoping to give Arkansas its full due as it will probably be the only time in my life I visit.

 

[StoppableSan]

Memphis Zoo and Aquarium

And now we come to the entire reason I made this trip in the first place. As a kid I assumed this was one of America’s great zoos because they were one of four with pandas. While the pandas are gone now, I was looking forward to it because I’ve heard good things about the hippo area and Heard Things about the theming.

I don’t think this is one of America’s great zoos. Certainly not top four. I’m not convinced it’s the best zoo in its own state. The collection has some nice surprises here and there, but nothing on the level of America’s top three zoos. Most exhibits are of a size best described as adequate. There aren’t many I would point to as plainly inadequate, but also they have a lot that may need to be reworked if standards rise across the board.

It still very clearly stands out with its over the top cultural theming. These include a massive Egyptian themed entrance, a mock Chinese garden, scale replica of Old Faithful Inn, totem poles, and some good old ruined temple theming. It’s kind of a surprise when one of the trails doesn’t have some sort of cultural set piece. I’m actually a little confused by the purpose of some of them. There are at least two buildings that seem to exist almost solely for private events with two more that probably could host them. There has to be diminishing returns at some point, right? Their use as event space means that most of the prominent structures can’t actually contain much of anything on the inside.

I would put this above most zoos in cities of similar size, but it falls beneath the really good ones like Kansas City and Columbus.

Entrance

It’s common enough for zoos to have a gate or something to distinguish the entrance. Some have buildings. Memphis has a giant gate structure themed to the original city of Memphis complete with a mix of real and fake hieroglyphs. On the interior are obelisks and a few Egyptian themed buildings with… not very much in them. A coffee shop, a gift shop, and a cafe a friend who lived in the city told me was overrated. There’s also the first of the zoo’s 3+ splash pads here. Tickets can be purchased on site, but only from a cart that’s pretty easy to miss with the gate drawing the eye.

The only exhibit in this section is a decently sized and furnished gibbon exhibit with windows looking into the cafe. Signage indicated that the gibbons were fascinated by these windows. I saw one running and brachiating all over the exhibit around opening. After that both gibbons seemed to spend the day seated next to the window looking in. Primates watching primates watching primates.

Animals of the Night

Nocturnal houses usually end up being one of my favorite parts of the zoo. This one wasn’t really an exception, although there were a few things that I disliked. One that I didn’t is that the zoo opens with the day cycle on and switches to night at 10:30 or 11:30 (can’t remember). It’s close enough to the entrance that it’s easy to visit when you enter and when you leave to see it in both states. Between the two I got to see almost everything active and all but one species clearly. Unfortunately, the one species was the giant pouched rat. I did see them moving, but they were in a shadow during the night phase so it just looked like a slightly darker patch moving around.

The exhibit has a lot to love. Rarities include bulldog bats, banded palm civets, and giant pouched rat. Other notable species include sloths, crested and prehensile-tailed porcupines, large spotted genets, binturong, kinkajou, potto, Texas blind salamander, ringtail, and three armadillo species. I love nocturnal primates. I also think kinkajous are great. I understand why AZA zoos don’t frequently include them, but I do think they’re a great display animal and I am never upset to see them.

One of the two problems is sort of universal for old nocturnal houses: some of the exhibits are pretty small for their inhabitants. The crested porcupines in particular felt pretty cramped. This was especially irritating since that species could easily be moved to one of the Africa exhibits without taking up too much space. I hope they move out during the Veldt redevelopment.

The other annoyance were the mirrors. So many exhibit walls are mirrors and it did not help my headache. I get that it helps disguise the first problem, but I really wish they got painted over. Sometimes it helped me spot a species, but usually they were more irritating than helpful.

Overall, though, a great way to start and end my day.

Primate Canyon

I don’t have particularly strong opinions on most of this one. The gorilla exhibit was fine. The orangutan exhibit was nicer than they usually seem to get even today. I love that an orangutan presented with a sheet will spontaneously invent clothing. The two rarer primates mixed in (spot-nosed guenon and Sulawesi macaque) were a treat. The theming of the canyon is pretty, naturalistic, and not overly intrusive. It was actually some of my favorite in the zoo.

The nearby bonobo exhibit is way too small for even the smallest great ape. I get that every bonobo holder is needed so it isn’t going to be phased out, but it needs expanded or something. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t do that with Zambezi River Hippo Camp. Speaking of…

Zambezi River Hippo Camp

This seems to be the most praised part of the zoo, and yeah I agree. I don’t think it quite lived up to the hype, though.

The flamingo pool is of a good size and I’m always happy to see lesser flamingoes. The opening exhibits with mandrill, okapi, Dik Dik, and larger birds are decent enough for the interesting species they hold.

I found out I have been mispronouncing okapi for over twenty years. I ask that you please respect my privacy at this time.

Only one hippo was out in the camp’s eponymous exhibit so it was hard to get a true idea of its scale by seeing hippos actually able to spread out. It is probably the best hippo exhibit I’ve seen in the AZA but it’s more of a step above rather than a revolution. Maybe Disney’s is better. I really can’t remember. I also think Safari Niagara’s is pretty great from a space perspective, even if it is very minimalistic.

I thought the crocodile exhibit was pretty big for the species and I’m always happy to see nile crocs. I’m seeing more Orinoco crocs these days, but it does feel like non-native crocodiles are still rare in zoos.

There’s a lemur exhibit that looks like it was built as a walkthrough before being closed off. It holds both ruffed lemur species. The view from the main path was blocked off so it was only visible from the hippo camp trail.

Teton Trek

This looks bigger in photographs. I was pretty disappointed to find that there was nothing of note in the lodge. It’s such an eye-catching structure that you’d figure there would be something. Even the views of the bear exhibit from the balcony are obstructed by trees. It is a good bear exhibit, though. Nice water feature and a fair bit of space. One of my favorite brown bear exhibits. The backdrop with the waterfall and elevated trail through the rocks is also good. In contrast, the wolf exhibit was underwhelming. It’s not bad. Perfectly fine for the species. I’m just used to wolves getting more than “perfectly fine” I suppose. And I’m spoiled by Brookfield.

The waterfowl area with swans, pelicans, and cranes was big enough that I couldn’t clearly see where it ended. The birds were still all clustered in the same space. All three are charismatic. Not sure how they deal with the swan being around the other two, though.

The rockwork here is really good. It’s half the point of the exhibit. I also liked the signage on the actual Tetons and the national park service. The elk exhibit is good but not great. I’m happy there were porcupines at the end in a pretty good habitat for them. That’s three porcupine species in the zoo.

Northwest Passage

The trail opens with a totem pole and the full text of that one Chief Seattle speech I keep seeing excerpts from at zoos. Theming an an arctic exhibit to the tribes of the PNW is hardly ground breaking, but I did think the signage and execution were better here than I’ve seen in the past. I thought the black bear exhibit was a little weak. The aviary for bald eagles and ravens was pretty good, though, with a few high perches. The raven used it to get above the eagles. I thought the sea lion and polar bear exhibits were fine. Not winning any awards, but not in dire need of replacement.

African Veldt

Every other trail in this zoo is a loop off of the main looping path. Then there’s this one random area that requires backtracking. Thanks, I hate it.

I have seen worse elephant exhibits but it’s probably for the best that it’s getting an upgrade soon. Really the entire Veldt seems like an anachronism for the zoo. No cultural theming. Just (relatively) big open spaces. The giraffe and mixed hoofstock exhibits were fine. The ostrich pen felt too small. I actually really liked the bongo and red river hog exhibit, but there was a keeper in it so I couldn’t see the animals. It’s rare to see a suid exhibit that isn’t entirely dirt and mud.

Curious to see what becomes of this. It wouldn’t have been my number one pick for a renovation in the zoo, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.

China

Memphis’s other signature trail. I did not like this one as much.

For those keeping a bingo card at home, here’s the food review. There was an Asian themed tater tot stand. I had to try this. I got one with tots, chicken, cabbage, crispy noodles, and chipotle sauce. It was really good and reasonably priced by the standards of zoo food. I would eat this again.

I found it curious that this was one of the only trails with a ‘correct’ entrance. I’m guessing that was for crowd control when they had pandas. It wasn’t too crowded during my visit. None of the zoo was. This was pretty surprising given the nice weather.

The entire area is themed to a Chinese garden, starting with a pagoda set piece. The initial exhibits for waterfowl and otters / gibbons are pretty. I do wish the gibbons had more climbing space to stay above the otters, though. The old panda yard was unoccupied during my visit. I do see why they and Atlanta aren’t getting pandas back. Their yards feel like a big step down from the Smithsonian’s. The old dayrooms are home to red pandas and clouded leopards. They’re fine enough, but I really wish they had rotating access to the outdoor yard. Actually, I wish the clouded leopards had access to the outdoor yard and the banded palm civets moved here. There’s already another, much better red panda exhibit in this zoo.

The waterfowl garden is very pretty but also poorly signed. For animals. The plants did have signage. I will allow it just for the novelty.

There are a few small aviaries and a langur exhibit that are all perfectly fine and not particularly remarkable. The same goes for the Père David’s deer yard, which was shady but barren.

Overall the area was pretty but not very remarkable without its former stars.

Herpetarium

For what it’s worth, this and the tropical bird house need updates more than the Veldt. Same for cat country.

It’s a fairly standard reptile house with a lot of smaller terrariums and a few mid-size or big ones. Pakistani pond turtles are both the rarest and one of the largest species here. There are three tiny crocodilian ponds. One has baby Chinese alligators so it works. The others are a little small even by the standards of dwarf crocodile exhibits. I would probably either skip this entirely or just see the turtles, alligators, and larger snakes if I came back.

Lair of the Dragon

Oh thank god I was worried that with all these lodges and gardens we weren’t going to have any ruined temple aesthetics. It’s actually pretty moderate here, though, and the land is a nice throwback to win Komodo dragons were a rarity that headlined their own complexes. The dragons were shut inside despite the weather. This was a shame. The indoor areas are fine. Some of the outdoor areas are pretty nice for the lizards. Not the best I’ve seen, but certainly better than the dayrooms. The signage does discuss their native, common, and scientific names which is cool. There are also exhibits for the two giant tortoises, radiated tortoises, and two empty pens out front. I don’t have much to say about them.

Aquarium

This is almost certainly a protected building that they couldn’t do anything to change if they wanted to. That’s a shame because I do not like this aquarium. The signs were electronic, covered multiple exhibits on a rotating loop, and frequently seemed either incomplete or inaccurate. This was frustrating as the narrow viewing areas and small space basically forced me to move at the pace of the crowd. Nothing in particular stood out. I like the Australian lungfish, I guess, and I’m never mad to see arowana or ripsaw cats. Or alligator snapping turtles. The signage in Primate Canyon hinted there was also one there, but I did not see it. A lot of the tank windows were dirty enough it was hard to see through. Is this my least favorite zoo aquarium? Probably, yeah. Moving on.

Once Upon A Farm

This is a zoo farm. It’s a pretty farm with a nice water feature in the middle. I like that it emphasizes (endangered) heritage breeds. I got to pet a cow. The enclosures are a little bigger than some zoo farms I’ve seen. Still not as big as non-domesticated animals of the same size would get. The signs talked about when and where animals were domesticated. I liked that. The expo pavilion was another big building with nothing much in it. There was an exhibit with pop-up bubbles that seemed to be empty.

Stingray Cove?

I thought this had opened this year. Guess not. It’s blocked off. Oh well. I would not have postponed my visit a year to touch a stingray.

While here I will comment that the round barn no longer exists. It has been replaced by a zip line with a very loud breaking system that I can’t imagine the nearby animals enjoy. Ordinarily I don’t mind attractions like this. Zoos can either give people the opportunity to pay more money if they want or raise ticket prices for everyone. It also gives kids something to do in addition to the playground, train and multiple splash pads. This one did bother me as it replaced a historic animal exhibit and the breaking system ground on me in the few minutes I was sitting nearby eating novelty deep-frozen ice cream product. I cannot imagine how the animals feel.

Penguin Rock

I did not know this place had one of America’s best penguin exhibits. It has a full circuit for swimming and lots of (water) space. I’m not sure how much of the land area they can climb on. If the answer is “almost all of it” then it’s probably the best African Penguin exhibit I’ve seen. There weren’t actually that many penguins, though. I only saw six. That’s a weirdly small colony size, right? Especially for an enclosure this big?

Tropical Bird House

This holds up better than the Herpetarium or Aquarium. It could still really benefit from a renovation. The opening hall is fairly small enclosures for one to two species of bird each. The top of the cage is paneled off to give the birds some privacy, but you can still see them if you crouch. It’s a good mix of pretty species and one with conservation value. There are two larger aviaries. One is for hornbills, trumpeters, whistling ducks, and hamerkop. It was, as usual, perfectly fine. The other was a walkthrough aviary with a mix of tropical species. It had a surprisingly limited area actually accessible to visitors. I still saw most of the species I wanted to. The ones that were signed, anyway. Quite a few seemed to be unsigned. Cotingas and whydahs are great and I’m always happy to see pigeons and doves.

The entire second row of aviaries were “temporarily” closed.

Cat Country

“She’s just going to say the spotted cats don’t have enough space.”

And I will stop saying it when it stops being true. Add in the mountain lion here as well. Most of t climbing cats did at least have verticality and some had areas where they could look out from the highest places at something beyond the exhibit. I liked the fishing cat and caracal exhibits. Lions and tigers felt like they were scraping against “adequate.” This complex is part of what I mean by Memphis struggling if standards get raised too much for large carnivores. The black bears, wolves, half the nocturnal house, and basically all the cats stand out. Except the cheetahs and the small cats in Cat Country. They’re fine.

As for the land’s strengths, the cave into the mountain lion / jaguar viewing was really cool. The red panda exhibit was great. Turns out all they need is a really big tree to climb. The capybara was a welcome surprise. They seemed to be alone, though. Why am I seeing so many zoos with single capybaras lately? I also thought the meerkat enclosure was pretty good. Certainly lively. They’re very good display animals.



I have no idea what I’m doing tomorrow. I do have to leave the hotel around noon. I’ll probably stay there until then. After that… I don’t know? Botanical gardens? Take in the vibes downtown? Maybe drive past Graceland. I kind of did all the stuff I had planned for tomorrow on the first day. I guess I could theoretically get out to Little Rock and save myself the later trip, but I was hoping to give Arkansas its full due as it will probably be the only time in my life I visit.

Enjoyed the review as always!

Curious if you've seen the city council session highlighting the main portions of Memphis Zoo's master plan - from 26:19 onward in the video, Memphis is looking to not only redevelop Africa (new spaces for giraffe, elephant, rhino, okapi, meerkat and even spotted hyena), but also the Tropical Bird House, Herpetarium and Aquarium will all be consolidated into an Oceans to Forests experience. There's also a concept for a new Latin America precinct for Andean bears, maned wolves, tapirs, jaguars and a switch from African to Humboldt penguins.

https://www.youtube.com/live/WLcspQYkOt0?si=iI4GreYcX5ZjRzBi

Past that, it's interesting that the zoo moved its black bears back from Teton Trek to their original exhibit in Northwest Passage now that they're down to one polar bear - when they were trying to breed, they had polar bears in both yards - honestly I'd just combine the yards into an overall larger space at this point.

 

[Persephone]

Enjoyed the review as always!

Curious if you've seen the city council session highlighting the main portions of Memphis Zoo's master plan - from 26:19 onward in the video, Memphis is looking to not only redevelop Africa (new spaces for giraffe, elephant, rhino, okapi, meerkat and even spotted hyena), but also the Tropical Bird House, Herpetarium and Aquarium will all be consolidated into an Oceans to Forests experience. There's also a concept for a new Latin America precinct for Andean bears, maned wolves, tapirs, jaguars and a switch from African to Humboldt penguins.

https://www.youtube.com/live/WLcspQYkOt0?si=iI4GreYcX5ZjRzBi

Past that, it's interesting that the zoo moved its black bears back from Teton Trek to their original exhibit in Northwest Passage now that they're down to one polar bear - when they were trying to breed, they had polar bears in both yards - honestly I'd just combine the yards into an overall larger space at this point.

I had not seen that video. The Veldt looks a lot like I was expecting tbh. Glad to see a fifth event space lol. At least this one sounds like it will have something for the public in it? The new aquarium sounds like it could genuinely be one of the best zoo aquariums. Curious if the new okapi area would allow them to redevelop that part of the hippo camp or if they’d keep it as is. Would be a nice place to put an updated bonobo area if they also took out the mandrill.


Also, it is fascinating to see them try to frame their attendance decline post-pandas on a nearby murder.

 

[snowleopard]

Thanks @Persephone for your review of Memphis Zoo, a place I visited in 2008, and I've always found it to be overrated by many. I've got a few zoo nerd friends who say lots of nice things about the zoo, but I was a bit disappointed during my solitary visit. I liked Northwest Passage, CHINA and Cat Country, but 17 years later those complexes don't seem to have aged well. The Reptile House, Aquarium, Bird House and Veldt are all badly in need of upgrades, the Nocturnal House exhibits are way too small, the loss of the historic Round Barn saddens me, and I suppose Primate Canyon ends up being one of the better areas in the zoo.

The two expensive additions since I was there would be Zambezi River Hippo Camp and Teton Trek and you have mixed reviews of both. This zoo badly needs funding for its proposed new, comprehensive Master Plan as currently I personally wouldn't even have Memphis in the top 30 American zoos.

 

[Persephone]

Thanks @Persephone for your review of Memphis Zoo, a place I visited in 2008, and I've always found it to be overrated by many. I've got a few zoo nerd friends who say lots of nice things about the zoo, but I was a bit disappointed during my solitary visit. I liked Northwest Passage, CHINA and Cat Country, but 17 years later those complexes don't seem to have aged well. The Reptile House, Aquarium, Bird House and Veldt are all badly in need of upgrades, the Nocturnal House exhibits are way too small, the loss of the historic Round Barn saddens me, and I suppose Primate Canyon ends up being one of the better areas in the zoo.

The two expensive additions since I was there would be Zambezi River Hippo Camp and Teton Trek and you have mixed reviews of both. This zoo badly needs funding for its proposed new, comprehensive Master Plan as currently I personally wouldn't even have Memphis in the top 30 American zoos.

After writing the review, I checked MyMaps. It turns out the Teton Trek exhibits are actually pretty big, with the smallest of the main four being the wolf exhibit at about 10,000 square feet. It’s narrow and long it looks smaller. The grizzly bear exhibit is about 25,000 square feet, which has to be the biggest I’ve seen in the AZA. Even the elk exhibit is a little shy of 20,000 square feet. So it turns out seeing everything from the elevated paths or weird angles made me misjudge the sizes.

I was right, though: the hippo exhibit at ~10,000 square feet is big by the standards of hippo exhibits but tiny compared to what other similarly sized animals get. The larger of the okapi exhibits also extends pretty far back out of view.

Would I put Memphis in my top ten? No. Top twenty? Probably. It’s certainly in the top ten most distinctive I’ve been to.