Put Me In The Zoo: Northern California Zoo Network Review
What is the “Northern California Zoo Network”?
I made this name up to describe the San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento Zoos. These are the major AZA accredited zoos in Northern California, although there are some additional AZA zoos (Safari West, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom [or whatever they call it on any given day], Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose, California Academy of Sciences). These three zoos are in relative geographic proximity and in reading what their long-term management objectives are it seems that their collections are developing to complement each other rather than compete with each other. I have visited all three of these zoos recently and decided to review them as a network.
Does this zoo network satisfy the reviewer’s Inner-3-Year-Old by featuring his lifelong favorite animals, giraffes and elephants?
Yes. The Oakland Zoo has African elephants. People in the know re: San Francisco Zoo have made it clear that elephants will never return there. Sacramento is too small for elephants (although they had Asian elephants from 1940s to 1991). It makes good sense that a regional zoo has elephants and can “share” them with the visitors of other communities in the region. In this era this seems to make good economic and husbandry sense given the money, space, and effort needed to build and maintain an adequate elephant program in the 21st century.
Each of these zoos has species that the other zoos don’t. Put together they form a regional “super-zoo” of sorts. Sacramento has a large reptile house, orangutans, red pandas, and several hoofstock species not seen at the other zoos. The San Francisco Zoo has polar bears, gorillas, hippos, and rhinos (Indian and black). The Oakland Zoo has African elephants, sun bears, fruit bats, and American alligators.
All of these zoos have some species in common including giraffes, lions, tigers, chimpanzees, zebra, flamingoes, ostrich, and various monkey and lemur species.
Does this zoo network have any animals that would excite a zoo aficionado?
The San Francisco Zoo has aye-ayes. The Sacramento Zoo has thick-billed parrots, yellow-billed magpies, Coquerel’s sifaka, golden-bellied mangabeys, giant garter snakes, and margays. As mentioned above most of the standard zoo animals are represented somewhere in this zoo network.
Does this zoo network have any immersion exhibits that would impress a zoo aficionado?
I had mistakenly thought that the San Francisco Zoo’s nocturnal hall with their aye-ayes had shut down. It turns out that they have a thriving colony of aye-ayes in a really good set of nocturnal enclosures. Public access is limited to daily tours given several times a day by interns or primate keeping staff. The presentation gives people a chance to adjust their eyes to the total darkness and includes a talk on the unique natural history, anatomy, and conservation status of the aye-ayes. The presentation that I saw was outstanding and the San Francisco Zoo is to be commended for this exhibit and presentation. I have bashed the SF Zoo for being a retrograde zoo and while many problems remain, if they can upgrade their facilities to this level of excellence they would become an outstanding zoo. The San Francisco Zoo African savanna exhibit and attached giraffe barn with indoor viewing are also excellent.
The San Francisco and Oakland Zoos have really good indoor insect/invertebrate houses with walking stick insects, spiders, and many others species.
Sacramento has a really good red panda forest that feels like you are walking through a real bamboo forest. They have a good jaguar exhibit that is shaded and bent like a riverine forest. The Sacramento flamingoes and waterfowl are on a large and lushly planted pond that resembles natural habitat. The new North American river otter exhibit is resembles a natural stream and is very attractive.
The Oakland Zoo sun bear exhibit is densely forested and is next to a very densely planted grassland for sika deer and muntjacs. The African lion exhibit is mainly oak savanna grassland that does resemble real lion habitat that I have seen in Kenya and Zambia. The Oakland Zoo children’s zoo has outstanding naturalistic American alligator and North American river otter exhibits.
Does this zoo network have any good basic exhibits?
The Oakland Zoo African elephant exhibit is spacious and has great elephant watching when they are splashing around in their pond. The Oakland siamang and white-handed gibbon exhibits are attractive islands.
San Francisco Zoo has a large colony of Humboldt penguins in a big enclosure that allows great views of their swimming, nesting, and social interactions. The gorilla exhibit is spacious and grassy, if not particularly wonderful compared to Woodland Park Zoo and Congo Gorilla Forest as Bronx Zoo. It compares favorably with Los Angeles and San Diego Zoos in my opinion.
The Sacramento Zoo has a very good reptile house with a diverse collection in well-landscaped exhibits. The renovated giraffe exhibit has a great deck overlook and a world-class giraffe barn. The Coquerel’s sifakas and black and white lemurs have an excellent newish exhibit that makes for great lemur watching. The giant anteaters have a very good glass-fronted exhibit where they can be watched up-close.
Does this zoo network have any exhibits that should be bulldozed?
None of these zoos have great chimpanzee exhibits. Oakland and Sacramento’s exhibits are maybe okay, with lots of climbing and enrichment opportunities. Both of these zoos seem to have plans to build better exhibits. The San Francisco exhibit is embarrassingly awful. I am told that the SF chimps are all old. I hope that there will be no more chimps at SF Zoo after they pass.
Sacramento’s orangutan exhibit is okay. It is vegetated and has some climbing opportunities, but not enough and it is smallish. A new orangutan exhibit is needed.
SF Zoo has an outdated primate exhibit complex with some good aspects like their aye-aye, outdoor lemur exhibit, and mandrills. Some of the cages are quite small and the education gallery, once outstanding, was allowed to rot and is now closed. The ancient WPA era feline, pachyderm, and bear exhibits are really bad. Taken together the core of the zoo is still in dire need of refurbishment and this lack of renewal drags down a zoo with some truly outstanding elements (e.g., aye-aye exhibit, giraffe savanna, insect zoo) and a great young staff. This zoo has suffered from leadership turnover, which is hopefully stabilizing with a new director. I wish her luck. If she can follow the template set out by her aye-aye staff and make some large-scale changes (NEW POLAR BEAR EXHIBIT PLEASE), then SF Zoo could have a very bright future.
Does this zoo network have any elements that make it particularly family friendly?
Oakland Zoo and SF Zoo have outstanding children’s zoos. Oakland and Sacramento Zoos are very walkable and have great exhibits and areas for animal viewing for all ages. All of these zoos have spacious areas and well-designed and maintained playgrounds for romping. Sacramento has a great butterfly garden for strolling and enjoying.
Does this zoo network have any interesting plans for the future?
Oakland Zoo will be building a new California exhibit complex in the next few years that will develop a whole new section of the zoo and create California condor, grizzly bear, wolf, jaguar, and bald eagle exhibits.
Sacramento Zoo according to rumors will be developing a new primate area on the footprint of their outdated monkey and gibbon enclosures. If the new sifaka/lemur exhibit is a guide to the new primate area it will hopefully be outstanding. New penguin and meerkat exhibits, which would bring these species to the zoo, are also rumored.
No major plans for the SF Zoo have been announced, but hopefully big, exciting, and most importantly, REAL change is coming soon.
Would a zoo aficionado network like this zoo enough to go out of his or her way to visit it?
Absolutely. Any zoo aficionado should visit these zoos as a whole if possible, and if not as they can individually. All of these zoos have flaws and elements worth seeing. I was very pleasantly surprised by my return to the SF Zoo, and although it has very deep problems I could still recommend a visit to the aye-aye gallery, giraffe savanna, and children’s zoo as reasons to visit it.
What is the “Northern California Zoo Network”?
I made this name up to describe the San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento Zoos. These are the major AZA accredited zoos in Northern California, although there are some additional AZA zoos (Safari West, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom [or whatever they call it on any given day], Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose, California Academy of Sciences). These three zoos are in relative geographic proximity and in reading what their long-term management objectives are it seems that their collections are developing to complement each other rather than compete with each other. I have visited all three of these zoos recently and decided to review them as a network.
Does this zoo network satisfy the reviewer’s Inner-3-Year-Old by featuring his lifelong favorite animals, giraffes and elephants?
Yes. The Oakland Zoo has African elephants. People in the know re: San Francisco Zoo have made it clear that elephants will never return there. Sacramento is too small for elephants (although they had Asian elephants from 1940s to 1991). It makes good sense that a regional zoo has elephants and can “share” them with the visitors of other communities in the region. In this era this seems to make good economic and husbandry sense given the money, space, and effort needed to build and maintain an adequate elephant program in the 21st century.
Each of these zoos has species that the other zoos don’t. Put together they form a regional “super-zoo” of sorts. Sacramento has a large reptile house, orangutans, red pandas, and several hoofstock species not seen at the other zoos. The San Francisco Zoo has polar bears, gorillas, hippos, and rhinos (Indian and black). The Oakland Zoo has African elephants, sun bears, fruit bats, and American alligators.
All of these zoos have some species in common including giraffes, lions, tigers, chimpanzees, zebra, flamingoes, ostrich, and various monkey and lemur species.
Does this zoo network have any animals that would excite a zoo aficionado?
The San Francisco Zoo has aye-ayes. The Sacramento Zoo has thick-billed parrots, yellow-billed magpies, Coquerel’s sifaka, golden-bellied mangabeys, giant garter snakes, and margays. As mentioned above most of the standard zoo animals are represented somewhere in this zoo network.
Does this zoo network have any immersion exhibits that would impress a zoo aficionado?
I had mistakenly thought that the San Francisco Zoo’s nocturnal hall with their aye-ayes had shut down. It turns out that they have a thriving colony of aye-ayes in a really good set of nocturnal enclosures. Public access is limited to daily tours given several times a day by interns or primate keeping staff. The presentation gives people a chance to adjust their eyes to the total darkness and includes a talk on the unique natural history, anatomy, and conservation status of the aye-ayes. The presentation that I saw was outstanding and the San Francisco Zoo is to be commended for this exhibit and presentation. I have bashed the SF Zoo for being a retrograde zoo and while many problems remain, if they can upgrade their facilities to this level of excellence they would become an outstanding zoo. The San Francisco Zoo African savanna exhibit and attached giraffe barn with indoor viewing are also excellent.
The San Francisco and Oakland Zoos have really good indoor insect/invertebrate houses with walking stick insects, spiders, and many others species.
Sacramento has a really good red panda forest that feels like you are walking through a real bamboo forest. They have a good jaguar exhibit that is shaded and bent like a riverine forest. The Sacramento flamingoes and waterfowl are on a large and lushly planted pond that resembles natural habitat. The new North American river otter exhibit is resembles a natural stream and is very attractive.
The Oakland Zoo sun bear exhibit is densely forested and is next to a very densely planted grassland for sika deer and muntjacs. The African lion exhibit is mainly oak savanna grassland that does resemble real lion habitat that I have seen in Kenya and Zambia. The Oakland Zoo children’s zoo has outstanding naturalistic American alligator and North American river otter exhibits.
Does this zoo network have any good basic exhibits?
The Oakland Zoo African elephant exhibit is spacious and has great elephant watching when they are splashing around in their pond. The Oakland siamang and white-handed gibbon exhibits are attractive islands.
San Francisco Zoo has a large colony of Humboldt penguins in a big enclosure that allows great views of their swimming, nesting, and social interactions. The gorilla exhibit is spacious and grassy, if not particularly wonderful compared to Woodland Park Zoo and Congo Gorilla Forest as Bronx Zoo. It compares favorably with Los Angeles and San Diego Zoos in my opinion.
The Sacramento Zoo has a very good reptile house with a diverse collection in well-landscaped exhibits. The renovated giraffe exhibit has a great deck overlook and a world-class giraffe barn. The Coquerel’s sifakas and black and white lemurs have an excellent newish exhibit that makes for great lemur watching. The giant anteaters have a very good glass-fronted exhibit where they can be watched up-close.
Does this zoo network have any exhibits that should be bulldozed?
None of these zoos have great chimpanzee exhibits. Oakland and Sacramento’s exhibits are maybe okay, with lots of climbing and enrichment opportunities. Both of these zoos seem to have plans to build better exhibits. The San Francisco exhibit is embarrassingly awful. I am told that the SF chimps are all old. I hope that there will be no more chimps at SF Zoo after they pass.
Sacramento’s orangutan exhibit is okay. It is vegetated and has some climbing opportunities, but not enough and it is smallish. A new orangutan exhibit is needed.
SF Zoo has an outdated primate exhibit complex with some good aspects like their aye-aye, outdoor lemur exhibit, and mandrills. Some of the cages are quite small and the education gallery, once outstanding, was allowed to rot and is now closed. The ancient WPA era feline, pachyderm, and bear exhibits are really bad. Taken together the core of the zoo is still in dire need of refurbishment and this lack of renewal drags down a zoo with some truly outstanding elements (e.g., aye-aye exhibit, giraffe savanna, insect zoo) and a great young staff. This zoo has suffered from leadership turnover, which is hopefully stabilizing with a new director. I wish her luck. If she can follow the template set out by her aye-aye staff and make some large-scale changes (NEW POLAR BEAR EXHIBIT PLEASE), then SF Zoo could have a very bright future.
Does this zoo network have any elements that make it particularly family friendly?
Oakland Zoo and SF Zoo have outstanding children’s zoos. Oakland and Sacramento Zoos are very walkable and have great exhibits and areas for animal viewing for all ages. All of these zoos have spacious areas and well-designed and maintained playgrounds for romping. Sacramento has a great butterfly garden for strolling and enjoying.
Does this zoo network have any interesting plans for the future?
Oakland Zoo will be building a new California exhibit complex in the next few years that will develop a whole new section of the zoo and create California condor, grizzly bear, wolf, jaguar, and bald eagle exhibits.
Sacramento Zoo according to rumors will be developing a new primate area on the footprint of their outdated monkey and gibbon enclosures. If the new sifaka/lemur exhibit is a guide to the new primate area it will hopefully be outstanding. New penguin and meerkat exhibits, which would bring these species to the zoo, are also rumored.
No major plans for the SF Zoo have been announced, but hopefully big, exciting, and most importantly, REAL change is coming soon.
Would a zoo aficionado network like this zoo enough to go out of his or her way to visit it?
Absolutely. Any zoo aficionado should visit these zoos as a whole if possible, and if not as they can individually. All of these zoos have flaws and elements worth seeing. I was very pleasantly surprised by my return to the SF Zoo, and although it has very deep problems I could still recommend a visit to the aye-aye gallery, giraffe savanna, and children’s zoo as reasons to visit it.
