It's nice to read a post where someone is so honest and forthright about what they have seen in a zoo. I'm happy to see that you made it to Brookfield Zoo and realized just how darn impressive that wolf habitat is. For sure, I agree that it's the best exhibit at the zoo and so many wolf exhibits aren't half as eye-opening as the one in Chicago.
If you are interested in typing up some reviews of the three facilities you visited in Chicago, then I'm sure that many of us would be excited to read them.
I'm not normally one to write reviews of zoos, and especially not well-visited facilities where others have said most things that I'd say. There are very few US facilities more documented on ZooChat than the ones in Chicago!
That said, all three facilities were incredible and are each excellent in their own right. Shedd was probably my least favorite, but that was mainly because the currently on-going construction is causing a lot of layout and crowd control issues- I'm sure I'd enjoy the aquarium a lot more once construction is finished! All of the exhibits are great, however, and I loved the way they did the "Animal Spotlight", as they expertly use projected images to enhance the educational aspects of the dolphin presentation. The California sea lion exhibit is easily the one bad exhibit in an otherwise excellent institution.
Lincoln Park has a lot of exhibits that are impressive, and has done an admirable job balancing modern exhibitry with highlighting the zoo's long history. The Pepper Family Wildlife Center is my favorite lion exhibit I've ever seen- and was very engaging despite the fact lions are one of my least favorite of the common zoo animals. This probably ranks as my second favorite zoo exhibit I've seen, after only Bronx's Congo Gorilla Forest. I also really loved the Japanese macaque exhibit, and it was a really nostalgic exhibit for me as Japanese macaques were the species that first got my interested in primates, and this exhibit re-captured the wonder I experienced seeing them at my childhood zoo. If I was a local, I could easily visit this free zoo all the time simply to sit and watch the macaques. For a medium-sized zoo, Lincoln Park also does an excellent job creating a diverse collection. In addition to having most of the classic charismatic megafauna, they have an excellent primate collection, an impressive bird collection, plenty of reptiles, a number of smaller mammals, and even a few fish. The "Camel-Zebra Loop" is the weakest part of the zoo, and is definitely showing its age, but other than that the zoo is excellent.
Brookfield Zoo stands out more for its collection than its exhibitry, and I saw a lot of really great species I'd never seen before: white-bellied tree pangolins (!!), short-beaked echidnas, crested capuchins, greater prairie chickens, Gambel's quails, two species of duiker, Chicago garter snakes, the list goes on! Much of the attention Brookfield Zoo gets on ZooChat is due to Tropic World, which is certainly a very historically significant exhibit. In some ways the exhibit has outlived its welcome, but in other ways it still remains excellent- the South America area is absolutely massive, creating one of the best New World monkey exhibits I've ever seen. Many of the species in here are also kept in larger social groups than typically seen, which is always really great. The mixed-species components of this building are also excellent- as it allows animals to display natural social behaviors not only between conspecifics, but also between other species they'd interact with in the wild. It'll be interesting to see if any modifications to the interior happen after the outdoor expansion opens (which looks like it'll be excellent!), as if so that could turn this already impressive exhibit back into a state-of-the-art one.
Outside of Tropic World, there are many other excellent exhibits around Brookfield: the aforementioned Wolf Woods, Habitat Africa: The Forest, and Desert's Edge were all standouts. I loved how many smaller species were interspersed throughout the zoo as well- almost every building had some smaller herps in addition to the larger mammals, which really enhances the theming around the zoo. I've also gained even more appreciation for the zoo's masterplan now, as it really seems as though the zoo understands what some of its weaker sections are: Phase 1 includes new exhibits for penguins and pinnipeds- which will move animals out of their current exhibits which I was unimpressed by. Phase 1 also will rework the existing Habitat Africa: The Savanna, Hoofed Animals, and Pachyderms areas, all of which mainly contain outdoor yards which are functional, but largely unextraordinary. The only other areas that stood out to me as rather poor were two of the zoo's oldest buildings: "Reptiles and Birds" and "Feathers and Scales". Even though these both felt older, and of weaker quality than, the rest of the zoo, nothing in either of these buildings seemed overly egregious either.
