Persephone’s 2024 Road Trips

[Persephone]

Lichterman Nature Center

I saw there was a nature center with some live animals between my hotel and the botanical gardens. Thought I’d at least stop by. I assumed it would be free or have a nominal fee like most nature centers.

Nope. This one costs you $14. At that point I was intrigued what kind of nature center can charge $14 so I paid it and entered.

The empty parking lot on a Sunday should’ve been all the warning I needed. Don’t do this. The collection is entirely native and locally introduced species. There aren’t any hidden rarities like the mole in Kansas City. They have a pretty solid invertebrate collection but nothing mind blowing.

I did like a few of their presentation choices. The centipede terrarium was mostly soil and you could see the tunnels they’d burrowed into it. I did not see the centipede itself, though. The house mouse similarly had deep substrate with a viewing area into a tunnel. There was a shallow pond out back with a submerged viewing window inside the nature center to look into it. They had channel cats, bluegill, carp, and a massive alligator snapper. They also had a very attention hungry homing pigeon and two adorable opossums.

I then went onto the nature trails because I had paid $14 and I wasn’t also paying for the botanical garden when I could walk in the woods there. The paths were in surprisingly rough shape with multiple routes blocked off due to bridge deterioration and even more obstructed by fallen trees. It was a pretty standard walk in the woods, albeit with some nice signage on Memphis’s past and future water concerns. There was also a bridge where you could feed fish for a dollar. That’s not very interesting. What was interesting is that the bridge attracted a ton of pond spiders who worked more for the food than the fish. It was weird seeing so many swimming quickly after their food. If you have a MoSH membership it’s probably worth a trip and a dollar just for that. Otherwise? Skip this place.

Downtown Memphis

This section is specifically about Beale Street and the Peabody Hotel. A few real life friends had recommended I check out downtown. I figured out what they were referring to was Beale Street. It’s essentially a themed bar district where almost everywhere frequently has live music and many are themed to the city’s past artists. I do not drink and was alone. This had little appeal to me. I bought enough food to use one place’s restroom because Memphis, like most American cities, does not have any public bathrooms. This makes being a tourist, and especially a tourist dependent on Amtrak’s odd hours, very annoying.

The Peabody Hotel has a duck march where four mallards march from their day home, a fountain that cost more money that I will ever see, to a home on the roof that cost $200,000. The fountain is an odd exhibit for mallards but the birds at least have lavish accommodations by human standards. The march is preceded by a long story I could sort of hear. Then the ducks follow a human from the fountain to an elevator while accompanied by music. It’s certainly an odd little spectacle. Free, too. I got there twenty minutes before and had an okay view. The hotel recommends thirty. That’s probably the minimum if you really want to get a great look at the ducks.




I am now waiting on an overnight train to take me home. I am already dreading this but am too cheap to shell out several hundred dollars for a sleeper room. I am reevaluating if I will continue to take Amtrak in the future, at least for overnight trips, or if I should just embrace modernity and replace it with flights. Other than nostalgia I really only take the train because flying alone while trans is always a fun little gamble, especially now.

Next month I will be taking a road trip to Birmingham. I’m planning stops in Nashville and Louisville to see two zoos I know are great before I get to one I suspect is… good? Probably? I have heard nothing about this place.

Maybe I’ll look at a second thing in or around Birmingham, but my schedule’s a little tight as is.

 

[Persephone]

Louisville Zoo

One summer break in college I decided to visit every AZA zoo. It’s been nearly a decade at this point and tomorrow I will be a third of the way done. At the start I also decided to reset my zoo count to zero. Any of the zoos I’d visited before then wouldn’t count so I could review them all on an equal basis. The Louisville Zoo was #3. I was curious how it held up seventy-six zoos later.

It’s good. I wouldn’t call it great. In general the exhibits felt a little beneath industry standard, much like Memphis. It was rarely egregious. There were only two* exhibits I thought shouldn’t be allowed in the AZA and two others I would call outright bad. But for major species, there are about as many I would unequivocally call good.

Islands

I don’t actually recall the year I started this dumb quest. Whenever it was, I barley got to islands at the end of the day and the main building was closed for maintenance. I decided to go counterclockwise to give it a fair shot.

My day started on an exceptionally high note when a docent was standing on the trail to islands with a bird on her falconry glove. It didn’t look like a red-tailed hawk so I asked her the species.

That was a Hawaiian hawk. It might be the only time I get to see one for years. And I saw it by pure luck of the draw. I don’t think they have a raptor show where it’s regularly showcased. I might recommend going counterclockwise at opening just in case the hawk is often at that spot at that time.

Islands opens with two exhibits for semi-aquatic birds. One is an aviary for black swans, whistling ducks, and little penguins. I adore little penguins. It was cool to see them. The exhibit’s good enough for birds of that size. The other exhibit has tortoises in warmer months. Today it held oriental white stork and Dalmatian pelicans. I don’t think I realized quite how big the pelicans were. Suitably impressive.

One of Louisville’s favorite tricks is rotational exhibits. This is most prominently featured in Islands where there are three outdoor exhibits and one indoor one holding five species throughout the day. Species periodically get rotated through so theoretically one is backstage and four are on display. The species are orangutan, Sumatran tiger, babirusa, Malayan tapir, and siamang. I was most hoping to see the babirusa. I did not. They were off display in the morning and in the afternoon both it and the tapir were off display with orangutans occupying two exhibits. It’s not a huge loss, just a little frustrating.

During my last visit to the zoo I thought the exhibits suffered for clearly being built for one or two of the species and being a poor fit for the others. I don’t hold quite as strongly to that after today’s visit. I saw the orangutan and tapir performing very interesting behaviors in exhibits I did not think were designed for them. The siamangs, which were in the clearly primate-friendly exhibit, weren’t doing a lot on either lap through the area.

My main problem is actually space, and specifically usable space. None of the four exhibits would meet modern standards for a tiger. Only one or two would have enough land and water space for the tapir. There is more usable climbing space than I thought there was for the primates so they’re fine. Unsure on the babirusa but they’re probably fine in three of the four, although the indoor one of course lacks digging opportunities.

I know I said these exhibits didn’t feel adequate for the tiger but honestly he was having the time of his life. There were just two mesh fences between him and an orange or tapir and he was quickly pacing or pouncing along the fence like my cat seeing a bird on the perch. I’m sure having prey scents regularly in his exhibits also helps with enrichment.

The last main component of Islands is a building that oscillates between being themed to islands or the tropics in general. The opening room is a series of mostly fine aviaries for species I see fairly often on my trips, and also one for bats that you could potentially miss if you take the wrong path. The indoor rotational exhibit is also potentially missable.

There’s a reasonably sized free flight aviary room. Crowned pigeons, pheasant pigeons, Madagascar ibis, and mandarin ducks were the headliners of the free flight birds. I saw all of them and most of the smaller species across two trips. There is a parrot on a stick display for two parrots. I’m a little more tolerant of it since there were two parrots that frequently interacted with each other and they at least had other birds flying around them for enrichment. I still dislike it on principle, though.

There’d a binturong exhibit that is the first “this should not be tolerated in a modern zoo” exhibit on the list. Since the other one is rotational, this is the zoo’s lowlight for me. Afterwards is a penguin exhibit that I thought was too small, along with inca terns with a fair amount of flying space. I’m not sure it would be a standout exhibit for puffins, either, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what I’d do with the room. It feels unnecessary with a much better penguin exhibit in the same complex.

The house ends with a perfectly fine Cuban crocodile habitat. The croc moved about one foot to the side in roughly five hours. There was also the winter exhibit for the Komodo dragon. I think it would be inadequate for a large dragon, but the specimen held there was on the smaller end of adult size so it was… tolerable, for a seasonal exhibit.

Herpaquarium

The weather today was nice and it’s about to get a lot worse. There was also a fairly large Girl Scout event going on. What I’m trying to say is that the zoo was packed. As a result I skipped a lot of the terrarium-filled walls of this building and focused on interesting species or bigger tanks.

I’m going to be honest, there wasn’t a lot in there to justify the visit for me. I liked the Dutch aquarium. Sand fish are cool. The Python exhibit is pretty decent. Vampire bats are always fun. There was a mixed species exhibit with indigo snakes and gopher tortoises. There was some fun signage by the Indian star tortoise exhibit about the animals being able to pick themselves up when they flip themselves over. The Hellbender exhibit was well designed but also felt like it should’ve had turtles with all the land area. This was my least favorite ‘region’ of the zoo that’s at all notable. Thankfully there was a waterfowl pond nearby to decompress at.

Metazoo

I didn’t go in this one on the first trip because I didn’t think it held animals. Sounded like a VR type thing. Anyway, it’s a small little building with ambassador animals and a permanent black footed ferret exhibit. I did not see them. The other animals were common. The building was crammed full of people due to the aforementioned event. I moved on pretty quickly.

Americas (and also East Asia)

This section lumps together a bunch of one-off exhibits and a small complex. Most of the animals are from the Americas. First up is a large maned wolf exhibit that felt like one of the best exhibits for its species in the zoo. The wolf, of course, was taking a nap in the sun.

There’s a good little exhibit for flightless bald eagles nestled between two North American cat exhibits. The lynx one felt a little too small. The cougar one would have earned the title of the third Bad exhibit in the zoo if the bar for the species wasn’t on the floor. The cougar did have an appropriately sized box and seemed very happy to be sitting in it. Truly a cat.

There’s a sloth exhibit that’s perfectly good for sloths. Same for toucans. Most zoos should have sloths or toucans and I am never unhappy to see them.

The former jaguar enclosure was given to red pandas and I am so, so glad for it. A bad jaguar enclosure became a perfectly good one for a frankly equally charismatic species. It was fairly well planted for an enclosed mesh cage, too.

The flamingo exhibit is decently large in grass area and a little light on water. That’s about the extent of my thoughts on it.

I was disappointed to find that the old guanaco exhibit was given to red crowned cranes. I do love cranes and it’s a very large enclosure for them. It also would have been a good enclosure for guanaco, which fit the area’s theme a bit better and are generally more interesting to me.

The Hungry Intermission

Had a chickpea sandwich at the Wild Burger and a snack by the little lake. They were both good but not spectacular. Didn’t feel too ripped off by the pricing. Don’t have a lot to say here but feel obligated to keep the joke running.

I liked that there were lots of bottle refilling stations at the zoo.

Australian Exhibits

There are two walkthroughs. Each is rather strange in that a batch of guests is led in at once and then escorted out at once. I haven’t seen this before. The first walkthrough is an aviary with lorikeets and also at least one honeyeater and kookaburra. The nectar is cheap but you don’t get a lot of it. No matter: the birds were all over me to a degree I almost never see on busy days. One really enjoyed soiling my hair. (This is a good reminder for me to take a shower. Doing that. Back in a moment to finish my thoughts on the zoo.)

…

Okay. Back.

There’s a wallaby walkthrough exhibit that had one staff member letting in a group and then following that group around until they finished the loop and he let them out and admitted the next one. The guide said there were eight red-necked wallabies. Wallaroos were signed. Maybe there were there and the guide didn’t mention them. I only counted eight macropods so I kind of assumed it was just wallabies. There was also a pen for cassowaries that was visible from the trail but didn’t have great views. The emus used to have access to the whole walkthrough but had each been banished to a small-ish pen at the edges. I debated if these were outright Bad exhibits or merely below average ones before deciding on the latter.

Unexpectedly, the zoo had koalas. No outdoor exhibit and it was just a retrofit of the snowy owl exhibit. I’m assuming this is temporary. Regardless, always cool to see in a zoo. Even if they don’t really do anything.

Glacier Run

There’s a reasonably tall aviary for sea eagles. The other half of the aviary is a walkthrough, but everything but a single red-breasted goose seemed to be locked off display. Most of the species were still visible through a door. I don’t know what was happening there. The pinniped and main bear exhibits are Fine. Not quite above average, but not bad either. I was curious about all the signage emphasizing that polar bears might be a subspecies of brown bear. I haven’t seen this at other zoos.

The second Bad exhibit is the indoor bear enclosure. The good about the rotation is that there’s an overhead bridge that I got to see a polar bear walking on. The bad is that the lesser exhibit is basically just a concrete room with some straw and a flight of stairs. I’ve seen the brown bear in here both visits and I hope that’s just the luck of the draw and they do have regular outdoor access. The theming is Alaskan Town, which is fairly common for polar bear complexes (Pittsburgh, Columbus, maybe more I’m forgetting) but I feel like the theming is better here than in the others I’ve seen.

Asian Cats

I was on the fence about visiting Louisville but decided to go because they’d added a new snow leopard exhibit. In case you’re just joining the thread now, I hate almost all cougar, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard exhibits I’ve seen. I was really excited to see what a modern snow leopard exhibit from a major zoo looks like.

I was underwhelmed. The main enclosure isn’t bad. There’s a fair amount of verticality and a cave to escape the heat in. It reminded me a lot of Brookfield’s Amur leopard exhibit in size and layout. But that exhibit isn’t exactly modern. The secondary snow leopard enclosure is smaller than my hotel room and is only salvaged by an elevated walkway leading over the guest path. The snow leopard was availing himself of it and sleeping right over the people below. It was cool.

There’s a Sumatran tiger exhibit next to it that’s fine. Maybe a little above average. There’s already a tiger who seems to be enjoying his life in the zoo. I just wish they’d given the snow leopards this exhibit as well, with the walkway going to the cat in the current snow leopard enclosure.

Also the former Sarus crane exhibit is closed and some of the fence has been demolished. Unsure what that’s about.

Africa

I’m not going to address every exhibit here because I’m tired and most are fairly average. Average or slightly above average size, nothing remarkable. The gamer part of my brain dislikes all the branching paths without signage in gorilla forest because I’m worried I’m missing an item in the branching trails. I actually did miss a view of the second gorilla exhibit before I backtracked. Both outdoor gorilla exhibits are pretty well planted. One had live trees that one gorilla was climbing. The bachelor troop was inside while the family troop was split between the dayroom and the outdoor enclosure. There was a very playful baby gorilla with a very exhausted mother.

There was also a baby colobus monkey. I did not realize the babies are pure white. They were very energetic and their antics combined with their parent’s efforts to rein them in was the highlight of my day.

I didn’t realize the elephants had already left. I know it’s almost groan-inducingly cliche at this point, but I do hope it goes to the rhino. His current exhibit is subpar and the elephant enclosure would be a much-needed upgrade.

I was initially disappointed in the lion enclosure before realizing they had access to the moat. It’s still not amazing, but it does give the lions an elevated perch to watch the giraffes and camels from. They were using it for that purpose while I was there. It’s perfectly fine for a single pair of lions.

I liked the two exhibits inside the giraffe house. One is an aviary for a big flock of northern bald ibis, a species of genuine conservation value that zoos can help with. There were also a few unsigned birds, including the day’s second pair of European white storks.

The kopje exhibit for leopard tortoises and rock hyraxes was great because I really love hyraxes. It feels like they should also be a semi-mandatory zoo animal akin to sloths.

I also liked the warthog exhibit. There was a good amount of space and a tiered structure so the bottom could be filled with mud without flooding the entire enclosure.



So that’s Louisville. A perfectly fine city zoo with an intriguing gimmick. Birmingham tomorrow alongside something else in Birmingham or Huntsville, probably. I have no clue what one does in Alabama other than get out as soon as possible.

 

[Persephone]

I am about to go and freeze my butt off at the Nashville Zoo so have a quick recap of yesterday’s trip while I psych myself up for that.

Birmingham Zoo

This zoo is half excellent, a third decent, and sometimes hits you with a throwback to the bad old days of the industry.

I think they had some of the best signage of any zoo I’ve visited recently with a lot on the individual animals and their history and more than one sign for the larger ones. It’s also a very pretty zoo with lots of water features and trees.

Let’s continue on to the excellent.

Alabama Wilds

Alabama Wilds is the most recently overhauled area of the zoo and you can kind of tell. Most of the exhibits are fairly large and naturalistic, taking full advantage of their forest setting. It opens with a rockwork heavy children’s zoo with an aquarium for a hefty alligator snapper built in. A docent told me they got the snapper after he was swept away from his home pond during Katrina. The smaller fish weren’t signed.

The path continues on to an excellent golden eagle aviary with signage emphasizing the zoo’s research efforts on the species and an okay sandhill crane pen. Then there’s a native species pond and a very rockwork heavy river otter exhibit. It looks new and expensive. There also just isn’t a lot of space for the otters to actually use, even less of it soft. I feel like they could have easily done a better and cheaper exhibit that would admittedly looked less imposing.

Cougar Crossing is the newest mini-complex consisting of netted off pens and a glass-fronted dayroom area for bobcats and cougars. The bobcat half is excellently sized for the species, even if they preferred the high artificial perches in the dayroom to the relatively flat outdoor area. The cougars did have a climbing structure. The size was… fine. I would be happy with this from a legacy exhibit, but it’s disappointing for a new one. There are two cougars who were being very playful.

There’s a small conservation cabin afterwards with gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snakes, and Key Perdido beach mice. I forgot how massive those snakes could get. The mice have a glass-sided exhibit where you can sort of peak into the sand tunnels. It isn’t on a reverse-light cycle, though, and I went in the morning and near closing and found the food has gone untouched. Good luck actually seeing these rodents, but I’m glad the zoo can use them to bring attention to a local threatened species.

There’s a wild turkey pen that is Fine and weirdly has almost no signage. Then a very large and well planted black bear exhibit that might be the most successful in the zoo for a large animal. A few small mammal(?) exhibits sit empty nearby, along with a stage where I saw a docent being out an opossum. There’s a small butterfly house that had one butterfly in it and no cocoons ready to hatch. Guess I came late in the season. Finally there’s a mediocre farm area entirely salvaged by a sign asking guests to instruct baby goats on good petting zoo behavior by ignoring them if they tried to bite or headbutt.

Hungry Intermission

I had some very good loaded hush puppies. There aren’t a whole lot of things I miss about living in The South, but food is one of them.

Trails of Africa

The complex is anchored by a really good bachelor elephant exhibit. The terrain is a bit bland like you’d expect, but they had big piles of dirt and sawdust and a ton of logs as enrichment items. One was sticking his trunk over the moat to collect falling leaves. Autumn visits with animals reacting to leaves are generally pretty great. Saw a lot of the herbivores at Louisville interacting with them, too, and the giant tortoises at Birmingham were also fans. The giraffe exhibit (also signed for ostrich but I did not see them) was quite barren and didn’t have quite enough space to be sparse but appealing. The zebra exhibit was Fine. I was very happy to see a red-flanked duiker. The three rhino exhibits would individually be subpar but work out well for a single rhino with access to all three.

Okay. Uh. Mostly glowing review over. Let’s talk about some of the sketchier stuff.

Predator House

Have you ever been in a zoo building that felt like the staff kind of gave up on it decades ago but haven’t quite found the money to tear it down? Yeah. This isn’t great. The lion has two exhibits and has at least occasional access to both, but even combined they’d be barley adequate. I think the long term plans are to tear down or heavily repurpose the building based on some signs on the doors and the number of boarded over or empty exhibits. In the short term I hope they phase out the lion and give the red pandas access to one exhibit. It looks practically built for them if they just added a few climbing features. The current red panda exhibit is concrete heavy and… functional, I suppose. The same goes for the remaining small mammal exhibits, four of which are for Pallas cat and one apiece for sand cats and fennec foxes. The biggest exhibit exclusively seen from the building is an empty aviary that apparently used to hold Cinereous vultures. Highlight is a repurposed tiger exhibit for coyotes. I wasn’t sure if they would actually use the rockwork but they absolutely did and it was very fun to watch them. Signage said they’re moving to Alabama Wilds in the future, so the one unequivocally Good part of this building isn’t too long for this world.

I hope the building itself follows shortly after.

Primates of the World / Giants of the Amazon

It feels like they need to bite the bullet and just make this entirely a South American complex since all but three of the exhibits already are. For the most part the first half is a dated but functional-for-residents primate house with some cape porcupines thrown in. The rodents were busy trying to open a door and escape, which feels like a metaphor idk. The proper Giants of the Amazon exhibits surprisingly weren’t that bad! The Anteater had a good outdoor enclosure. The Jaguar exhibit would be disappointing for a modern exhibit but is fine for a refurbishment and had a good deal of vertically and maybe a pool. The otters were entirely indoors but had a decent amount of space. They were the biggest miss of my day, though. Why do people hate this building so—

Listen.

This is not the worst orangutan exhibit in the AZA. It might not even be the second worst I’ve seen.

This is an indictment of the AZA rather than praise for Birmingham Zoo.

Fish Hatchery and Southern Bayou

There are a few bird / fish / native herp exhibits that repurpose old fish hatchery ponds. The largest is for flamingoes and a black-necked swan and it is completely fine at that job. The flock felt a little small, though. The only other clearly filled exhibit is for mute swans, which I don’t see a lot of in the AZA. There were also unsigned carp that drew a lot of attention and a softshell turtle. The final pond just held unsigned carp, small fish, and turtles. I wish they leaned into the fish hatchery angle more and stocked game fish or threatened species in the ponds. I suppose the carp are fine, though, although I wish they had a sign. It could even be a mini invasive species complex with the mute swans.

The alligator exhibit looks like a fenced off piece of natural habitat and I’m totally fine with that. There was also a barred owl aviary. I always forget how big they are. Decent exhibit size for the species.

Birds

This feels like a very historic complex with tons of small buildings with bird cages built into the outside. Not many are particularly rare. The cages are mostly on the small side for modern standards but none offended the conscience. The outside of the plaza is ringed with a few larger bird exhibits. The path was weirdly quiet during my visit. I’m never unhappy to see cranes or ground hornbills. The kori bustard is a delightful species. Highlight of my visit was seeing a very active secretary bird patrolling his new home. It’s not a great complex, but I don’t think it should be first in line for demolition.

Reptiles

I genuinely don’t hate or even particularly dislike this building. The terrariums are large enough that multiple guests can view simultaneously. I love the cave racer and Asian giant toad species mix. Pygmy rattlesnakes are adorably fearsome. Kaup’s caecilian are fun. The Komodo could use outdoor access but the exhibit is otherwise about standard for the species.

Shame I won’t get to see Nashville’s outside today due to the cold.

The reptile house had basically no signage beyond the individual species and their habitat. I didn’t like that much and it’s a weird failure in an otherwise well-signed zoo.


All in all, it’s a pleasant mid-sized zoo with a few historic buildings badly in need of demolition or renovation. The aviary could also use a conversion to a more modern form at some point.


Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Literally right next to the zoo. I was burning daylight and the temperature was dropping fast, so I only went to the Japanese Garden and a local forest garden. I assume admission is free because the gate was open and unattended. I really liked the Japanese garden and the forest was a nice place to take a walk.

Vulcan Park and Museum

So there’s a giant statue of a Roman god overlooking Birmingham and no one had told me this before. Admission to the park is free, the museum and viewing tower cost $8 per person. The museum was a short but nice overview of the statue and the city’s history. Didn’t belabor the point but felt worth $8 combined with the skydeck. Admittedly, though, the views up there aren’t much better than the already excellent views from the hill the statue is based on. It’s not far from the zoo and I would strongly recommend visiting this if you’re in Birmingham.

Okay. Can’t stall any longer. Into the cold!

 

[Persephone]

(See the Birmingham post above if you missed that)

Nashville Zoo

I am now one third of the way through the AZA with 80 facilities visited. Nashville is in my overall top ten (in no particular order: Nashville, Omaha, North Carolina, Toronto, Columbus, St. Louis, Kansas City, Georgia Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Wilds). It’s also really the only one of those ten without a jaw-dropping moment or two. It also doesn’t have a ton of rarities. At least, not a lot that are consistently on display. I think I like it so much because it’s supremely competent at being a major zoo. There’s only one bad exhibit in the whole place, which is the unfortunate parrot on a stick at the very entrance. More impressively, there are only three or four I’d call borderline or decent. The babirusa, alligator, and clouded leopard exhibits. Maybe the giraffe. I’ll talk about it later.

The collection isn’t super deep or rare, but it hits a good mix of appealing animals and displays almost all of them in aesthetically pleasing exhibits build into the hillside forests. It is a very good execution of a zoo.

Anyway, I had a moment of indecision at the start where the ticket booth operator told me that only one or two species were likely to be out and Unseen New World, the one major animal building, was closed for maintenance. I ended up paying and I’m very glad I did. It was closer to ~40% of species out.

A list of things out in the winter:

Stanley Cranes
Koi
Domestic Cow
Domestic Donkey
Domestic Goat
Barn Owl
Komodo Dragon
Aardwolf
Spotted Fanaloka*
Amur Leopard
Trumpeter Swan
Cassowary
Red Kangaroo
Sumatran Tiger
Lake Sturgeon?
Southern Pudu
South American Fish & Caiman Lizards
Red Panda
Greater Flamingo, American Flamingo
Clouded Leopard
Alpaca
Also probably Cougar but I didn’t see them so idk

In addition, almost all of the lantern festival decorations were in place. This included multiple building-sized set pieces, including a five-ish story castle.

I’m going to skip a full review of the entry area since almost nothing was out. It’s very pretty, though, and I really like the primate islands.

For the most part this review will skim over exhibits where I did not see the animals.

Grassmere Farm

The current Nashville Zoo was opened in 1997 on the site of an old plantation. The zoo’s barnyard area is the remains of the actual farm. Tours are offered of the main house. I debated waiting for one but wasn’t sure they were actually running given the almost complete lack of visitors. I genuinely saw more construction workers putting up the lanterns today than I saw paying guests or members. When I left the farm the sign with times was flat on the ground. Guess they weren’t offered after all.

The paddocks are of a good size, which you would expect from a former working homestead. I got to see miniature donkeys in little coats to deal with the cold. It’s probably my favorite zoo farm if only because it incorporates the actual buildings and gardens and discusses how the actual residents used the property. Slavery is glossed over on most of the signage, but there are many signs about the tenant farmers who lived there.

Africa Loop

The Africa loop starts with Komodo dragons and the veterinary hospital / nursery. The Komodo exhibit is new since my last visit and is easily my first or second favorite dragon enclosure I’ve seen. It has a lot of green space, some verticality, and a nice pool. Crocodile monitors are on display in the indoor portion in the summer, but I obviously missed them today.

Aardwolves and spotted fanaloka are currently on display in the nursery. Unfortunately, I did not see the fanaloka on either pass. The aardwolves were very cute.

The rhino exhibit is one of my favorites for the species with its large size and mix of greenery, mud, and a water feature. The giraffe exhibit next to it is fine, really, but I do wish they could be given access to the white rhino enclosure. I know they’ve been mixed at other zoos.

The Amur leopards were the only African animals out. Leopard Forest is the other new addition since my last visit. It’s really good. The leopards have a lot more space than they usually get and multiple real and fake trees to climb. This feels like what leopard exhibits should be and it made me very happy to see it done right. The primate and klipspringer exhibits are also quite large for their species, although the animals were indoors due to the cold (30s and windy). I am a little annoyed that the first two “loops” are really just straight paths up a hill that require a lot of backtracking. It’s not a serious mark against the zoo. Just makes the most autistic part of my brain itch.

The Hungry Intermission

I had a fig and arugula pizza. The crust was excellent. The pizza as a whole was fine, I guess. Maybe I ordered too adventurously. Only one place in the zoo was selling hot chocolate. Would have ordered a lot more of them otherwise lol.

Oh also the central zoo has what looks like a very nice playground with an elevated koi pond / aquarium. There are a lot of koi ponds in the zoo. It’s nice. I stopped to watch the fish at all of them.

Tropical Trail

Most of the zoo’s animals are in a set of mini-complexes on a shared loop. This starts with a very nice pond for the trumpeter swans, one of America’s best meerkat exhibits, and an excellent enclosure for saddle-billed cranes.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the cassowary out. There were a fair few kangaroos in the decently sized walkthrough as well. The tiger exhibit is quite good with excellent signage in the viewing building. The tiger’s pond appeared to have an unsigned lake sturgeon in it. That seems like a remarkably charismatic fish to put in a tiger’s fishing hole.

The Andean bear exhibit gets a lot of praise and deserves all of it. The Guinea pigs were off display but I love their little village. And the pudu are always a delight.

Almost everything was off exhibit in the bamboo forest. Well, the cougar probably had outdoor access but I didn’t see them so I can’t be sure. They have a nice exhibit built into a hillside. I also very much like their spider monkey exhibit and remember enjoying them a lot last visit.

The flamingoes were out. I did not know they made that sound while filtering water and I am very happy to have learned about it today.

The contact yard at the end has a few exhibits lining the side. One of these held a pair of clouded leopard cubs who spent a long time wrestling with each other. It was adorable and easily the highlight of the visit.

Overall, not my best trip to this zoo, but it did remind me why I regard it so highly.

The Parthenon

There’s a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville and I feel like this isn’t as widely known as it should be. Granted, the building is a little less impressive for being made of concrete with no effort to disguise that. The interior holds an art museum with exhibits on the building and statue’s histories. It was a nice use of an hour or so. The upper floor has casts of the Parthenon marbles and a forty-foot Athena Parthenos statue. That is the second giant statue of a classical deity I have seen in as many days. Overall, it’s a very cool statue in a fun little museum. There’s also a public park around it and the Vanderbilt campus nearby, but I limited my time outside.


And that’s a wrap on the trip. I thought about visiting Kentucky Down Under on the way back but don’t really want to with the cold snap. I’m done with trips for the season. Getting a bit too cold to properly experience most zoos. I am tentatively planning to get out to Baltimore and Washington in April. I’ll let y’all know if that changes.

 

[Kudu21]

(See the Birmingham post above if you missed that)

Nashville Zoo

I am now one third of the way through the AZA with 80 facilities visited. Nashville is in my overall top ten (in no particular order: Nashville, Omaha, North Carolina, Toronto, Columbus, St. Louis, Kansas City, Georgia Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Wilds). It’s also really the only one of those ten without a jaw-dropping moment or two. It also doesn’t have a ton of rarities. At least, not a lot that are consistently on display. I think I like it so much because it’s supremely competent at being a major zoo. There’s only one bad exhibit in the whole place, which is the unfortunate parrot on a stick at the very entrance. More impressively, there are only three or four I’d call borderline or decent. The babirusa, alligator, and clouded leopard exhibits. Maybe the giraffe. I’ll talk about it later.

The collection isn’t super deep or rare, but it hits a good mix of appealing animals and displays almost all of them in aesthetically pleasing exhibits build into the hillside forests. It is a very good execution of a zoo.

Anyway, I had a moment of indecision at the start where the ticket booth operator told me that only one or two species were likely to be out and Unseen New World, the one major animal building, was closed for maintenance. I ended up paying and I’m very glad I did. It was closer to ~40% of species out.

A list of things out in the winter:

Stanley Cranes
Koi
Domestic Cow
Domestic Donkey
Domestic Goat
Barn Owl
Komodo Dragon
Aardwolf
Spotted Fanaloka*
Amur Leopard
Trumpeter Swan
Cassowary
Red Kangaroo
Sumatran Tiger
Lake Sturgeon?
Southern Pudu
South American Fish & Caiman Lizards
Red Panda
Greater Flamingo, American Flamingo
Clouded Leopard
Alpaca
Also probably Cougar but I didn’t see them so idk

In addition, almost all of the lantern festival decorations were in place. This included multiple building-sized set pieces, including a five-ish story castle.

I’m going to skip a full review of the entry area since almost nothing was out. It’s very pretty, though, and I really like the primate islands.

For the most part this review will skim over exhibits where I did not see the animals.

Grassmere Farm

The current Nashville Zoo was opened in 1997 on the site of an old plantation. The zoo’s barnyard area is the remains of the actual farm. Tours are offered of the main house. I debated waiting for one but wasn’t sure they were actually running given the almost complete lack of visitors. I genuinely saw more construction workers putting up the lanterns today than I saw paying guests or members. When I left the farm the sign with times was flat on the ground. Guess they weren’t offered after all.

The paddocks are of a good size, which you would expect from a former working homestead. I got to see miniature donkeys in little coats to deal with the cold. It’s probably my favorite zoo farm if only because it incorporates the actual buildings and gardens and discusses how the actual residents used the property. Slavery is glossed over on most of the signage, but there are many signs about the tenant farmers who lived there.

Africa Loop

The Africa loop starts with Komodo dragons and the veterinary hospital / nursery. The Komodo exhibit is new since my last visit and is easily my first or second favorite dragon enclosure I’ve seen. It has a lot of green space, some verticality, and a nice pool. Crocodile monitors are on display in the indoor portion in the summer, but I obviously missed them today.

Aardwolves and spotted fanaloka are currently on display in the nursery. Unfortunately, I did not see the fanaloka on either pass. The aardwolves were very cute.

The rhino exhibit is one of my favorites for the species with its large size and mix of greenery, mud, and a water feature. The giraffe exhibit next to it is fine, really, but I do wish they could be given access to the white rhino enclosure. I know they’ve been mixed at other zoos.

The Amur leopards were the only African animals out. Leopard Forest is the other new addition since my last visit. It’s really good. The leopards have a lot more space than they usually get and multiple real and fake trees to climb. This feels like what leopard exhibits should be and it made me very happy to see it done right. The primate and klipspringer exhibits are also quite large for their species, although the animals were indoors due to the cold (30s and windy). I am a little annoyed that the first two “loops” are really just straight paths up a hill that require a lot of backtracking. It’s not a serious mark against the zoo. Just makes the most autistic part of my brain itch.

The Hungry Intermission

I had a fig and arugula pizza. The crust was excellent. The pizza as a whole was fine, I guess. Maybe I ordered too adventurously. Only one place in the zoo was selling hot chocolate. Would have ordered a lot more of them otherwise lol.

Oh also the central zoo has what looks like a very nice playground with an elevated koi pond / aquarium. There are a lot of koi ponds in the zoo. It’s nice. I stopped to watch the fish at all of them.

Tropical Trail

Most of the zoo’s animals are in a set of mini-complexes on a shared loop. This starts with a very nice pond for the trumpeter swans, one of America’s best meerkat exhibits, and an excellent enclosure for saddle-billed cranes.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the cassowary out. There were a fair few kangaroos in the decently sized walkthrough as well. The tiger exhibit is quite good with excellent signage in the viewing building. The tiger’s pond appeared to have an unsigned lake sturgeon in it. That seems like a remarkably charismatic fish to put in a tiger’s fishing hole.

The Andean bear exhibit gets a lot of praise and deserves all of it. The Guinea pigs were off display but I love their little village. And the pudu are always a delight.

Almost everything was off exhibit in the bamboo forest. Well, the cougar probably had outdoor access but I didn’t see them so I can’t be sure. They have a nice exhibit built into a hillside. I also very much like their spider monkey exhibit and remember enjoying them a lot last visit.

The flamingoes were out. I did not know they made that sound while filtering water and I am very happy to have learned about it today.

The contact yard at the end has a few exhibits lining the side. One of these held a pair of clouded leopard cubs who spent a long time wrestling with each other. It was adorable and easily the highlight of the visit.

Overall, not my best trip to this zoo, but it did remind me why I regard it so highly.

The Parthenon

There’s a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville and I feel like this isn’t as widely known as it should be. Granted, the building is a little less impressive for being made of concrete with no effort to disguise that. The interior holds an art museum with exhibits on the building and statue’s histories. It was a nice use of an hour or so. The upper floor has casts of the Parthenon marbles and a forty-foot Athena Parthenos statue. That is the second giant statue of a classical deity I have seen in as many days. Overall, it’s a very cool statue in a fun little museum. There’s also a public park around it and the Vanderbilt campus nearby, but I limited my time outside.


And that’s a wrap on the trip. I thought about visiting Kentucky Down Under on the way back but don’t really want to with the cold snap. I’m done with trips for the season. Getting a bit too cold to properly experience most zoos. I am tentatively planning to get out to Baltimore and Washington in April. I’ll let y’all know if that changes.

One of my biggest issues with Nashville is they keep building these beautiful new exhibits, but they only build single exhibits — one Andean bear exhibit, one Sumatran tiger exhibit, one Komodo dragon exhibit, one Amur leopard exhibit… Meaning that there are almost always animals of all of these species being kept in holding. The Amur leopard and colobus money exhibits also share a transfer chute, so neither species can have access to the indoors if the other is on exhibit…. it just seems like a lot of oversight and poor planning/emphasis on aesthetics vs. welfare for such brand new exhibits. Perhaps that’s what should be expected for a facility that keeps importing rare species to house behind-the-scenes and only use for ambassador programming…

 

[pachyderm pro]

One of my biggest issues with Nashville is they keep building these beautiful new exhibits, but they only build single exhibits — one Andean bear exhibit, one Sumatran tiger exhibit, one Komodo dragon exhibit, one Amur leopard exhibit… Meaning that there are almost always animals of all of these species being kept in holding. The Amur leopard and colobus money exhibits also share a transfer chute, so neither species can have access to the indoors if the other is on exhibit…. it just seems like a lot of oversight and poor planning/emphasis on aesthetics vs. welfare for such brand new exhibits. Perhaps that’s what should be expected for a facility that keeps importing rare species to house behind-the-scenes and only use for ambassador programming…

What's strange is there was originally going to be two leopard exhibits. The colobus were supposed to be mixed with the Debrazza's guenons, but ending up getting moved to the one of the planned leopard enclosures late in the process, explaining why they share a transfer chute.

 

[Persephone]

What's strange is there was originally going to be two leopard exhibits. The colobus were supposed to be mixed with the Debrazza's guenons, but ending up getting moved to the one of the planned leopard enclosures late in the process, explaining why they share a transfer chute.

I initially mistook the colobus exhibit for a second, slightly weaker leopard exhibit and was glad they didn’t need backstage holding. Good to know this was the plan at some point. Curious why they changed it.

 

[Kudu21]

What's strange is there was originally going to be two leopard exhibits. The colobus were supposed to be mixed with the Debrazza's guenons, but ending up getting moved to the one of the planned leopard enclosures late in the process, explaining why they share a transfer chute.

Which is really only slightly better because one cat would still not have been able to have access to the indoors… I have heard they have had issues with the colobus monkeys overheating when locked out in the Nashville summer heat, so imagine if an Amur leopard had to be locked out in similar conditions…

 

[Coelacanth18]

The exhibit has a lot to love. Rarities include bulldog bats, banded palm civets, and giant pouched rat.

No bear cuscus anymore? Would be a shame if it's gone, it was the only one in North America I believe... and their slender loris and wombat are gone now too. Pouched rat is cool, but hardly a worthy replacement IMO...

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.

They actually *did* announce plans to phase them out - last year IIRC. I guess they still haven't, which doesn't surprise me because I'm not sure if the other holders even have the space to take them. We *really* need a couple more zoos to join the program.

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.

Based on your description, I *think* this was the area's walkthrough aviary, which was closed and under renovation during my visit 4 years ago. Sounds like lemurs were moved into it, but I'm not sure if it was intended to be walkthrough with the primates?

The initial exhibits for waterfowl and otters / gibbons are pretty.

No Sulawesi macaque anymore either? Jeez...

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.

That's weird, I thought the cloudies were taking over both the outdoor yard and the dayrooms. I think they would have to add mesh or another barrier though, since it's open-topped.

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.

Do they also still have the neon lights that reflect off the tank windows?

The rhino exhibit is one of my favorites for the species with its large size and mix of greenery, mud, and a water feature.

This was originally built for the zoo's elephants, which were shipped out and replaced with the rhinos. I forget exactly why, but IIRC it had something to do with their indoor holding rather than the outdoor habitat. The zoo claimed they were only leaving temporarily until the issue was fixed; I guess the idea was dropped at some point, since they're continually building new exhibits for other species instead.

 

[Persephone]

No bear cuscus anymore? Would be a shame if it's gone, it was the only one in North America I believe... and their slender loris and wombat are gone now too. Pouched rat is cool, but hardly a worthy replacement IMO...

They had the bear cuscus. Just forgot to mention it.

No Sulawesi macaque anymore either? Jeez...

The macaques have moved to the primate area. There was not a mesh barrier over the giant panda yard.

This was originally built for the zoo's elephants, which were shipped out and replaced with the rhinos. I forget exactly why, but IIRC it had something to do with their indoor holding rather than the outdoor habitat. The zoo claimed they were only leaving temporarily until the issue was fixed; I guess the idea was dropped at some point, since they're continually building new exhibits for other species instead.

I was going to say. It’s a lot nicer than the other elephant yards that are getting phased out.