Put Me In The Zoo: Los Angeles Zoo Review
Zoo visit date: March 7, 2012
Does this zoo satisfy the reviewer’s Inner-3-Year-Old by featuring his lifelong favorite animals, giraffes and elephants?
Yes, the LA Zoo has a herd of Masai giraffes and a group of Asian elephants. In the not-so-distant past from when this review is being written they also had two African savanna elephant females, but one died and one left the zoo when the new “Elephants of Asia” exhibit was built.
Does this zoo have any animals that would excite a zoo aficionado?
Giant otters, Coquerel’s sifakas, Slater’s blue-eyed lemurs, Cape vultures, okapis, duiker city (yellow-backed, black, red-flanked), tomistomas, Grey’s monitors, koalas, cassowary. The zoo’s website has a list of species in the zoo and seems to be updated fairly often to reflect reality of who lives in the zoo at any given time. At the writing of this review (March 2012) the zoo has a Sumatran rhino, but he is not yet on exhibit and it is not clear if he will be. We LA Zoo nerds obviously hope that he will be and that as a result ZooChat friends will come visit us from around the world.
The LA Zoo has an impressive collection of rare hoofstock and porcine species including peninsular pronghorn (the zoo helps their conservation program in Mexico), lowland anoa, Nubian ibex, Calamian deer, Tadjik markhor, tufted deer, Chinese water deer, Southern gerenuks, Speke’s gazelles, Greater Malay chevrotain, babirusa, red river hogs, Chacoan peccaries, and Visayan warty pigs. OINK.
Does this zoo have any immersion exhibits that would impress a zoo aficionado?
The LAIR (Living Amphibians, Reptiles, and Invertebrates) has just opened as this review is written. I have written a separate review of this exhibit; it is immersive in many respects and is a terrific exhibit in my opinion.
The zoo has a large walk-through aviary that is lushly planted. The zoo is an accredited botanical garden in addition to being an accredited zoo, so some of the zoo grounds resembles a lush forest and some of it resembles a desert landscape. I would call this aspect of the zoo immersive.
There is a very nice harbor exhibit at the front of the zoo with great underwater viewing of the seals. There is a wonderful lush exhibit for Chinese primates, which has great vertical use of space for the monkeys. It was built for golden snub-nosed monkeys that never showed up because of political hissy fits by the Chinese government, so it now has Francois laungurs as of March 2012.
Does this zoo have any good basic exhibits?
The zoo has been on a construction boom for the first decade of the 21st century (starting in the late 1990s). The zoo was a decaying mess with problems like coyotes breaking through the fence and eating flamingoes, black rhinos getting tuberculosis, and general rot of exhibits and infrastructure. Inspired leadership with a new zoo director, Manuel Molliendo, great staff, and support of then-mayor Richard Riordan and the LA City Council got a bond measure passed in 1998 and set about building a good 21st century zoo. Since that time new chimpanzee, orangutan, and gorilla exhibits have been built. The parking lot of the zoo has been rebuilt into a “green” parking lot to collect rain and channel it into aquifers, rather than be wasted as urban runoff. The parking lot now also resembles a botanical garden for California native plant species as these species are planted in rows breaking up the lot paving and channeling the runoff. This is the only zoo that I have been to where the parking lot is an attraction. There is a new entrance complex with a large education complex for school groups and other kids zoo programs. The new seal exhibit was part of this development.
I like the great ape exhibits. My friend snowleopard panned the orangutan exhibit for not being naturalistic, but I take a contrary view that it is a very good exhibit for the species. One finds oneself in the middle of a circle of connected exhibits that are a few stories high and made of netting. The orangs can climb the netting and move from one section of the exhibit to the other. It is greatly impressive to see the male orang climb above you as he would in nature. There have also been babies over the last few years and it is a joy to see the development of a baby orang as it learns to climb and gain confidence and independence from mom. There are usually volunteers stationed here to interpret the orang behavior and natural history for people. The LA Zoo has incorporated volunteers and paid interpretive staff for most of the new exhibits. As I note in my LAIR review I think this greatly enhances the zoo exhibits as truly interactive experiences for people to learn about the animals in front of them and as conservation ambassadors for their wild relatives. Making zoo animals truly meaningful conservation ambassadors for their wild relatives is one of the stated goals of 21st century zoos and LA’s use of exhibit interpretive staff seems like a really good development in this difficult challenge. Keep developing it, LA Zoo.
The gorilla exhibit is green and spacious, but it is not a fully immersive jungle like Woodland Park or the Bronx Zoo gorilla exhibits are. This has been a disappointment to some people who have reviewed this exhibit on ZooChat. I do not share this disappointment. I find this to be a good basic gorilla exhibit that seems to meet the gorillas needs, resulting in seemingly content and happy gorillas, and it showcases them well for zoo visitors similar to the San Diego Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, and Omaha Zoo gorilla exhibits.
The new Elephants of Asia exhibit opened in December 2010. It is a multi-acre exhibit that incorporates several ponds and a big waterfall that seems to have been inspired by the famous animatronic Asian elephant in waterfall tableau at Disneyland (Mouse Clubhouse - Marc Davis talks about a hilarious memory of Walt Disney). I have seen both the male Asian elephant and one of the females using the waterfall and they did look like they were enjoying themselves. The elephant exhibit has multiple viewing areas and sometimes the elephants are not close by which can be frustrating for zoo visitors, especially young ones. On balance however I have seen the elephants playing and vocalizing in ways that I have not at other zoos. I watched crowds entranced by elephant behaviors. I think that this is a really good exhibit and was worth the design problems, and especially the political ruckus, that it took to get this exhibit built. The exhibit has direct links to a wild Asian elephant conservation program in Cambodia and interprets how elephants live near humans in China and India and the conservation challenges this causes.
Does this zoo have any exhibits that should be bulldozed?
The LA Zoo has made great progress in becoming a good 21st century zoo but it still has a long ways to go. Some species like hippos, polar bears, and likely soon, lions, cannot be adequately displayed at the zoo and are no longer exhibited. The LA Zoo once had all bear species apparently, but now has only a pair of American black bears that were causing problems in the wild and would be destroyed if not brought into captivity. They are in an old concrete bear exhibit. The LA Zoo needs a really good new modern bear exhibit. The giraffes are in a smallish yard that would be greatly enhanced with more space. There were plans for a new lion exhibit that got shelved. Hopefully they will become reality in the next wave of zoo improvements.
They also desperately need a new jaguar exhibit.
Does this zoo have any elements that make it particularly family friendly?
The zoo has a good children’s zoo with a large contact yard, regular appearances by live animal ambassadors like snakes, lizards, hawks, etc., a nursery area, and some Southwestern desert native species like prairie dogs and ocelots. The highlight is a cool cave area that has blind cave fish, scorpions, and interpretive displays on cave geology and exploration.
There is a bright, shiny new conservation carousel.
One of the MAJOR design flaws of the zoo that unfortunately can only be tolerated and not fixed is that the zoo is built in a horribly user-unfriendly layout. ZooChatter dmanwarren explained in a thread that the initial zoo design was given to some real estate developers who knew nothing about zoo planning and now we all have to live with it. I have been going to the zoo on a regular basis for 15 years and I still get lost in the $#@1%ing network of cul-de-sacs and zigzags that the zoo is designed around. The zoo is also built on hills so there is a lot of up and down walking. A legally blind spider monkey randomly laying out zoo exhibits couldn’t have done much better than this. There are lots of direction signs around and zoo personnel are very friendly and approachable, so that helps ameliorate the problem to the degree that it can be. My advice is make sure that you pick up a zoo map if you are a new visitor. You WILL need it.
Does this zoo have any interesting plans for the future?
The final project from the 1998 bond measure, the Rain Forest of the Americas, is now under construction and is projected to be finished in spring 2013. Highlights announced include a giant otter exhibit with underwater viewing, a harpy eagle aviary, and a red uakari exhibit.
The zoo also needs a public California Condor exhibit. They have been and continue to be important partners in the conservation and recovery of this species in the wild. It is perplexing that this species does not have a public exhibit at this zoo while it is present at Santa Barbara and San Diego Zoos. Hopefully this can be remedied in the near future.
Would a zoo aficionado like this zoo enough to go out of his or her way to visit it?
I would think that any zoo fan would like some aspect of this zoo. It doesn’t have blockbuster immersion exhibits like Congo Gorilla Forest at Bronx Zoo or Disney’s African savanna exhibit, but it does have a great elephant exhibit, decent great ape exhibits, a fantastic new reptile-amphibian complex, and a great collection of mammal and bird species not seen at many other zoos. I think that the LA Zoo is comparable in exhibit and collection quality to the San Diego Zoo, although others may not agree about this.
My major concern is that the LA Zoo keep up the progress that it is making to be a good 21st century zoo. LA has been hit by a bad economic climate for several years, which has the city council and mayor considering “privatization” of the zoo, the same process that Bronx Zoo and San Diego Zoo underwent decades ago. Hopefully this will result in a stronger zoo ready to continue into the future as a meaningful conservation-oriented zoo and not take us back to the truly bad old days of the early 1990s.
Zoo visit date: March 7, 2012
Does this zoo satisfy the reviewer’s Inner-3-Year-Old by featuring his lifelong favorite animals, giraffes and elephants?
Yes, the LA Zoo has a herd of Masai giraffes and a group of Asian elephants. In the not-so-distant past from when this review is being written they also had two African savanna elephant females, but one died and one left the zoo when the new “Elephants of Asia” exhibit was built.
Does this zoo have any animals that would excite a zoo aficionado?
Giant otters, Coquerel’s sifakas, Slater’s blue-eyed lemurs, Cape vultures, okapis, duiker city (yellow-backed, black, red-flanked), tomistomas, Grey’s monitors, koalas, cassowary. The zoo’s website has a list of species in the zoo and seems to be updated fairly often to reflect reality of who lives in the zoo at any given time. At the writing of this review (March 2012) the zoo has a Sumatran rhino, but he is not yet on exhibit and it is not clear if he will be. We LA Zoo nerds obviously hope that he will be and that as a result ZooChat friends will come visit us from around the world.
The LA Zoo has an impressive collection of rare hoofstock and porcine species including peninsular pronghorn (the zoo helps their conservation program in Mexico), lowland anoa, Nubian ibex, Calamian deer, Tadjik markhor, tufted deer, Chinese water deer, Southern gerenuks, Speke’s gazelles, Greater Malay chevrotain, babirusa, red river hogs, Chacoan peccaries, and Visayan warty pigs. OINK.
Does this zoo have any immersion exhibits that would impress a zoo aficionado?
The LAIR (Living Amphibians, Reptiles, and Invertebrates) has just opened as this review is written. I have written a separate review of this exhibit; it is immersive in many respects and is a terrific exhibit in my opinion.
The zoo has a large walk-through aviary that is lushly planted. The zoo is an accredited botanical garden in addition to being an accredited zoo, so some of the zoo grounds resembles a lush forest and some of it resembles a desert landscape. I would call this aspect of the zoo immersive.
There is a very nice harbor exhibit at the front of the zoo with great underwater viewing of the seals. There is a wonderful lush exhibit for Chinese primates, which has great vertical use of space for the monkeys. It was built for golden snub-nosed monkeys that never showed up because of political hissy fits by the Chinese government, so it now has Francois laungurs as of March 2012.
Does this zoo have any good basic exhibits?
The zoo has been on a construction boom for the first decade of the 21st century (starting in the late 1990s). The zoo was a decaying mess with problems like coyotes breaking through the fence and eating flamingoes, black rhinos getting tuberculosis, and general rot of exhibits and infrastructure. Inspired leadership with a new zoo director, Manuel Molliendo, great staff, and support of then-mayor Richard Riordan and the LA City Council got a bond measure passed in 1998 and set about building a good 21st century zoo. Since that time new chimpanzee, orangutan, and gorilla exhibits have been built. The parking lot of the zoo has been rebuilt into a “green” parking lot to collect rain and channel it into aquifers, rather than be wasted as urban runoff. The parking lot now also resembles a botanical garden for California native plant species as these species are planted in rows breaking up the lot paving and channeling the runoff. This is the only zoo that I have been to where the parking lot is an attraction. There is a new entrance complex with a large education complex for school groups and other kids zoo programs. The new seal exhibit was part of this development.
I like the great ape exhibits. My friend snowleopard panned the orangutan exhibit for not being naturalistic, but I take a contrary view that it is a very good exhibit for the species. One finds oneself in the middle of a circle of connected exhibits that are a few stories high and made of netting. The orangs can climb the netting and move from one section of the exhibit to the other. It is greatly impressive to see the male orang climb above you as he would in nature. There have also been babies over the last few years and it is a joy to see the development of a baby orang as it learns to climb and gain confidence and independence from mom. There are usually volunteers stationed here to interpret the orang behavior and natural history for people. The LA Zoo has incorporated volunteers and paid interpretive staff for most of the new exhibits. As I note in my LAIR review I think this greatly enhances the zoo exhibits as truly interactive experiences for people to learn about the animals in front of them and as conservation ambassadors for their wild relatives. Making zoo animals truly meaningful conservation ambassadors for their wild relatives is one of the stated goals of 21st century zoos and LA’s use of exhibit interpretive staff seems like a really good development in this difficult challenge. Keep developing it, LA Zoo.
The gorilla exhibit is green and spacious, but it is not a fully immersive jungle like Woodland Park or the Bronx Zoo gorilla exhibits are. This has been a disappointment to some people who have reviewed this exhibit on ZooChat. I do not share this disappointment. I find this to be a good basic gorilla exhibit that seems to meet the gorillas needs, resulting in seemingly content and happy gorillas, and it showcases them well for zoo visitors similar to the San Diego Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, and Omaha Zoo gorilla exhibits.
The new Elephants of Asia exhibit opened in December 2010. It is a multi-acre exhibit that incorporates several ponds and a big waterfall that seems to have been inspired by the famous animatronic Asian elephant in waterfall tableau at Disneyland (Mouse Clubhouse - Marc Davis talks about a hilarious memory of Walt Disney). I have seen both the male Asian elephant and one of the females using the waterfall and they did look like they were enjoying themselves. The elephant exhibit has multiple viewing areas and sometimes the elephants are not close by which can be frustrating for zoo visitors, especially young ones. On balance however I have seen the elephants playing and vocalizing in ways that I have not at other zoos. I watched crowds entranced by elephant behaviors. I think that this is a really good exhibit and was worth the design problems, and especially the political ruckus, that it took to get this exhibit built. The exhibit has direct links to a wild Asian elephant conservation program in Cambodia and interprets how elephants live near humans in China and India and the conservation challenges this causes.
Does this zoo have any exhibits that should be bulldozed?
The LA Zoo has made great progress in becoming a good 21st century zoo but it still has a long ways to go. Some species like hippos, polar bears, and likely soon, lions, cannot be adequately displayed at the zoo and are no longer exhibited. The LA Zoo once had all bear species apparently, but now has only a pair of American black bears that were causing problems in the wild and would be destroyed if not brought into captivity. They are in an old concrete bear exhibit. The LA Zoo needs a really good new modern bear exhibit. The giraffes are in a smallish yard that would be greatly enhanced with more space. There were plans for a new lion exhibit that got shelved. Hopefully they will become reality in the next wave of zoo improvements.
They also desperately need a new jaguar exhibit.
Does this zoo have any elements that make it particularly family friendly?
The zoo has a good children’s zoo with a large contact yard, regular appearances by live animal ambassadors like snakes, lizards, hawks, etc., a nursery area, and some Southwestern desert native species like prairie dogs and ocelots. The highlight is a cool cave area that has blind cave fish, scorpions, and interpretive displays on cave geology and exploration.
There is a bright, shiny new conservation carousel.
One of the MAJOR design flaws of the zoo that unfortunately can only be tolerated and not fixed is that the zoo is built in a horribly user-unfriendly layout. ZooChatter dmanwarren explained in a thread that the initial zoo design was given to some real estate developers who knew nothing about zoo planning and now we all have to live with it. I have been going to the zoo on a regular basis for 15 years and I still get lost in the $#@1%ing network of cul-de-sacs and zigzags that the zoo is designed around. The zoo is also built on hills so there is a lot of up and down walking. A legally blind spider monkey randomly laying out zoo exhibits couldn’t have done much better than this. There are lots of direction signs around and zoo personnel are very friendly and approachable, so that helps ameliorate the problem to the degree that it can be. My advice is make sure that you pick up a zoo map if you are a new visitor. You WILL need it.
Does this zoo have any interesting plans for the future?
The final project from the 1998 bond measure, the Rain Forest of the Americas, is now under construction and is projected to be finished in spring 2013. Highlights announced include a giant otter exhibit with underwater viewing, a harpy eagle aviary, and a red uakari exhibit.
The zoo also needs a public California Condor exhibit. They have been and continue to be important partners in the conservation and recovery of this species in the wild. It is perplexing that this species does not have a public exhibit at this zoo while it is present at Santa Barbara and San Diego Zoos. Hopefully this can be remedied in the near future.
Would a zoo aficionado like this zoo enough to go out of his or her way to visit it?
I would think that any zoo fan would like some aspect of this zoo. It doesn’t have blockbuster immersion exhibits like Congo Gorilla Forest at Bronx Zoo or Disney’s African savanna exhibit, but it does have a great elephant exhibit, decent great ape exhibits, a fantastic new reptile-amphibian complex, and a great collection of mammal and bird species not seen at many other zoos. I think that the LA Zoo is comparable in exhibit and collection quality to the San Diego Zoo, although others may not agree about this.
My major concern is that the LA Zoo keep up the progress that it is making to be a good 21st century zoo. LA has been hit by a bad economic climate for several years, which has the city council and mayor considering “privatization” of the zoo, the same process that Bronx Zoo and San Diego Zoo underwent decades ago. Hopefully this will result in a stronger zoo ready to continue into the future as a meaningful conservation-oriented zoo and not take us back to the truly bad old days of the early 1990s.
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