NNM.
Well-Known Member
Well this was unexpected.
I haven't done a ton on ZooChat. The absolute most is review three zoos, none of which are particularly popular. But more recent events and revelations, born from morbid curiosity, have inspired me to give this idea a whirl.
So... Zoo New England's Stone Zoo. For whoever read my old review last year, I trashed it pretty hard. I did give it its fair share of compliments and note that was better than I'd remembered, but I generally had more bad to say than good. And most notably, I unfavorably compared it constantly to its big sister, Franklin Park Zoo, which I am infinitely more familiar with.
For six years, I hated Stone Zoo.
However, I mulled things over in the past year, and a handful of months ago, not motivated by anything in particular, I decided to go back here. I remembered the good stuff, and at the very least I thought it would be nice to see that in-person again; for only the fifth time, too. Maybe I'd see a bit more of what some others did in this small, sleepy facility, as the consensus here seems to be it's the better of the ZNE duology.
Things have changed, ever so slightly. And I'll convey how so as I analyze the zoo exhibit complex by exhibit complex, for the most part in order of appearance. I'll name most of, or at least the most prominent species for each, but for some I doubt I can list every single one individually.
I also will note that Butterfly Oasis was closed off due to the then-chilly conditions, and I have never seen this relatively-new exhibit personally, but the videos I have seen of it make it look pretty and well-designed enough.
Onto the real review, now.
Caribbean Coast
You can both see and hear the entry exhibit from outside the front gate. This is a decently large walkthrough aviary with closed-off exhibits for the supposedly rare Jamaican iguana, with the main attraction of course being the American, or perhaps more appropriately Caribbean flamingos, at the time sharing their enclosure, which took up most of the right half of the aviary, with Barrow's goldeneye. There are also free-flight scarlet and blue-and-yellow macaws and scarlet ibis.
Even on my 2018 visit that created my initial disdain, I admitted that this aviary was a pretty solid opening for the zoo. Granted, it wasn't as cool as it would've been if it wasn't March, but it was still impressive. As such, the free-flight birds, as was the iguana, but absence doesn't detract from exhibit quality. The birds had plenty space to fly, albiet not a ton to perch on, and the iguana enclosure was large for the animal.
The flamingos are the stars, and while it wasn't huge, the enclosure is very well-designed with its multiple pools and just enough space to hold a large flock of the birds without seeming cramped. The bush dog enclosure down the left path is apparently also part of the complex, and that's pretty good too. We're off to a surprisingly promising start. 8/10
Yukon Creek
So technically you're usually meant to walk down the left path after exiting Caribbean Coast and finish off with this exhibit, but for whatever reason I went down the right path instead as a kid, and decided to this time.
Admittedly, I also did this because I didn't want this to be the finishing exhibit.
If you go the way I did, the path begins with most likely Stone's most popular species, the black bear. This exhibit features the brothers Smoky and Bubba, unless something else took place that I wasn't aware of. What follows are similar-looking, netted-over enclosures for bald eagles, North American porcupine, Artctic fox, and Canada lynx. The forested path ends with a more open yard for reindeer.
Yukon Creek wasn't as bad as I remembered. I do really like the quaint and fairly-immersive theming of the Northern, colder temperate trail it's meant to be, but I can't praise much else. The bald eagle exhibit was under construction, but based on the shape of the aviary, I doubt it will look a ton better.
The porcupine exhibit was small and didn't provide enough climbing material despite the elevation. This is a recurring criticism I have with Stone Zoo, actually, it will come up again in the next area. The lynx and Arctic fox (which was absent) exhibits weren't bad; I actually kind of like the two-part design of the former, but they had very lackluster fencing that just looked kind of like cages.
The black bear enclosure was actually a bit better than I remembered. It's still definitely too small, but not quite as much as I expected. It has a passable water feature and some rocks to climb on. I still don't think it's a very good exhibit, but it's still much preferable to the terrible reindeer exhibit, which is just a tiny, dusty pen contained by weak wire fencing. Not a great complex, unfortunately. 5/10
Treasures of the Sierra Madre
If you come out of Yukon Creek as I did, you'd technically see a different exhibit than this one and eventually see the back end, but I decided to not go too against the grain and just retrace my steps to the entry path and go past the bush dog exhibit as intended. As such, this part will be in the intended order.
Aviaries for roadrunners and the peregrine falcon are what you'll see first, as well as an exhibit for Chacoan peccaries. Then there's an interesting setup with a saloon-style building contains smaller exhibits behind glass on both sides, which also bare exhibits for large cats: cougar on the left, and the jaguar on the right. The "building's" left side has terrariums for reptiles like the Pueblan milk snake, Gila monster, chuckwalla, and spiny iguana. The right side has small mammal nocturnal exhibits for a ringtail (formerly signed as a cacomistle) and a group of Seba's short-tailed bats. There are also two separate exhibits for white-nosed coati.
Much like Yukon Creek, I rather like the theming; this time for a desert environment using manmade setups in ways that make sense for the animal. Thankfully, this is a better trail than that one. Still, it isn't great. The terrariums are decent, especially the surprisingly roomy one for the lizards. I also really like the clever mineshaft cave for the bats; also well-sized. The ringtail has a similar idea, but this one leans too far into the human environment direction that the enclosure looks very unnatural. Unfortunately, the roadrunner and coati enclosures are not very good. The former is far too small and the latter has cheap and wiry fencing, which again lacks the right amount of climbing material.
The falcon aviary is okay, though, as is the peccary exhibit. This used to house coyotes, and the slight rocky terrain hint at this, but it also means it provides enough space. It also features some glass viewing areas, something surprisingly sparse at Stone. ...that alliteration was unintentional. This applies to the two central cat exhibits. The cougar has it better; it's not the best, but it gives the cat enough to climb on in my opinion. This cannot be said for the jaguar, which has an odd wooden tower that doesn't really serve this purpose. It also has a middling metal bin for a pool, which is unideal. Sierra Madre isn't terrible by any means, but it's also a sign of this zoo's overall quality... so far, anyway. 6/10
Animal Discovery Center
I'll make this one brief. It's a tiny herpetarium with terrariums varying from solid to small and unnatural for Eastern box and Blanding's turtles, leopard geckos, and the Pueblan milk snake once again, along with the California king snake and rosy boa. Both the best and the weakest tanks go to the multispecies green-and-black and dyeing poison frogs and Panamanian golden frog, and the Magnificent tree frog respectively. That's about it. 6/10
Treetops and Riverbeds
You'll notice that many exhibit areas at Stone Zoo are quite small, which I suppose is fitting for a zoo this small anyway. I suppose the name is accurate, as there are two enclosures for the black-and-white colobus and a larger setup for white-cheeked gibbons (treetops) and one for North American river otters.
This is one I remember being worse. That said, the colobus monkey exhibit is quite bad, I won't deny that. Despite there being two different enclosures, both are small and have far too little climbing enrichment for a monkey of all creatures. The river otter exhibit, however, I used to think was worse. But like the black bears, it wasn't nearly as bad as I recalled. It could still stand to be larger, with the same applying to their pool, but it's not cramped. The same could go for the gibbons, which have a large net for an enclosure with glass windows on both sides. What they have to climb and swing on doesn't take full advantage of the height, but it's a decent exhibit in other areas. Not awful, not amazing. 6/10
Don't worry, things will get less "middle-of-the-road" soon.
Windows of the Wild
Well, we’re here.
This is a horseshoe-shaped sheltered structure filled with titular indoor exhibits for various animals with no particular theme to tie it all together. Such animals include the two-toed sloth, silvery-cheeked hornbill, rock hyraxes, long-tailed chinchilla, Blanding’s turtles, cotton-top tamarins, red-rumors agouti, the prehensile-tailed porcupine, rhinoceros hornbills, the Hyacinth macaw (at least at the time) and supposedly fennec foxes now. There is also an indoor exhibit for the black-and-white colobus from earlier. Outside the building is a yard for African-spurred tortoises and a small aviary for a barn owl.
I’ll be blunt: this exhibit sucks. Even the people who work at the zoo want to replace it. The barn owl exhibit is okay and the tortoise exhibit is probably fine, since it was barren when I last visited due to the temperature. But the building itself is ugly to look at and the lightning inside is unpleasantly dim. More importantly, almost every enclosure has the same setup of concrete floors with no substrate or plants, brick walls halfheartedly painted, and usually not much else inside. The only enclosures that work to any extent are the multispecies exhibit of tamarins, sloth, and agouti, which is bigger than the others and has actual substrate, and the hyrax exhibit for more interesting terrain. Everything else is as described, and while Stone Zoo is far from perfect, this is by far the worst exhibit it has to offer. 3/10
Alfred Huang North American Crane Exhibit
The name is largely self-explanatory, except that the titular whooping cranes are joined by waterfowl like the Barrow’s goldeneye and hooded merganser. They share a large enclosure with a large pool inside.
Things start to improve here. While simple, this is a very spacious and well-planted exhibit that looks somewhat out of place, but that could be said for any exhibit here. 7/10
Barnyard
What it says on the tin. This is a very small farm area tucked in the corner of the zoo. The barn mostly houses Nubian and Nigerian dwarf goats and Southdown sheep, which have access to a small petting corral. Towards the front there is also an area for chickens and some playground attractions nearby.
I don’t know why, but I have a weird soft spot for this exhibit. It’s nothing special, but it does exactly what it set out to do. I don’t have much to say about it outside of that. 6/10
Himalayan Highlands
First of all, this complex has the exact same name as one at the Bronx Zoo, and that just makes me wish I was there instead.
But anyway, the exhibit starts with a yak exhibit before the barnyard area, but after walking up a small hill, you have the road on your right, and two large enclosures for snow leopards and the markhor.
This is a huge jump in quality from most of what came before. Mostly, because the yak exhibit is a small dust pit, but the other two are surprisingly great. The snow leopard exhibit has a great design, being built into the side of a rocky hill and providing an ideal terrain and varied elevation for the cats. And the markhor exhibit is even better. It’s huge, rocky, and highly dynamic. When this zoo gets it right, it really gets it right. 8/10
Mexican Gray Wolves
In the furthest corner of the zoo is a massive enclosure for this rare subspecies of the iconic gray wolf. And it is fantastic.
It’s essentially as though they put a fence around a natural forested hillside area, which works wonders. It’s massive, dynamic, and has great viewing from different vantage points. One especially cool part is a window inside a fake wolf den, complete with a small replica mother with cubs inside, which looks out onto the very top of the enclosure that oversees everything below. The number of individual wolves inside only makes it better. This is truly the best Zoo New England has to offer. 9/10
Stone Zoo is still not exactly great. I wasn’t expecting it to be revisiting it. But it’s most definitely not the disaster I thought it was, and I honestly had a pretty decent time this run. In my older review, I used the word “bizarre” as the best to describe the zoo, but while it is, it’s not the most accurate possible.
No, the best possible word to describe this place is “inconsistent.”
While most of the zoo varies from solid to just okay, every so often it will blow you away, while in at least one or two spots it drops the bomb. But I think the zoo does what it can with a limited budget and even more limited space. It has embraced its status as a small zoo, and serves its role pretty well.
I doubt I’ll go back any time soon, but Stone Zoo didn’t really deserve the harsher tone I used previously. The middling exhibits were somewhat better than I remembered, the bad stuff was regrettably as bad as I remembered, and the good stuff was even better than remembered as well. It's flawed, but charming and rather unique. It’s also still kind of all over the place, but if you’re in this community and find yourself In Massachusetts, I don’t think you’ll leave thinking a visit here was a waste of time, and you’ll probably be in a fairly decent mood.
Overall rating: 6/10
Speaking of visiting zoos in Massachusetts, after I was done with Stone for the day, I decided I might as well use the free time I had left to visit Franklin Park for the millionth time. And there was a bit of a whiplash.
What do I mean? Well… maybe I’ll get to that later.
I haven't done a ton on ZooChat. The absolute most is review three zoos, none of which are particularly popular. But more recent events and revelations, born from morbid curiosity, have inspired me to give this idea a whirl.
So... Zoo New England's Stone Zoo. For whoever read my old review last year, I trashed it pretty hard. I did give it its fair share of compliments and note that was better than I'd remembered, but I generally had more bad to say than good. And most notably, I unfavorably compared it constantly to its big sister, Franklin Park Zoo, which I am infinitely more familiar with.
For six years, I hated Stone Zoo.
However, I mulled things over in the past year, and a handful of months ago, not motivated by anything in particular, I decided to go back here. I remembered the good stuff, and at the very least I thought it would be nice to see that in-person again; for only the fifth time, too. Maybe I'd see a bit more of what some others did in this small, sleepy facility, as the consensus here seems to be it's the better of the ZNE duology.
Things have changed, ever so slightly. And I'll convey how so as I analyze the zoo exhibit complex by exhibit complex, for the most part in order of appearance. I'll name most of, or at least the most prominent species for each, but for some I doubt I can list every single one individually.
I also will note that Butterfly Oasis was closed off due to the then-chilly conditions, and I have never seen this relatively-new exhibit personally, but the videos I have seen of it make it look pretty and well-designed enough.
Onto the real review, now.
Caribbean Coast
You can both see and hear the entry exhibit from outside the front gate. This is a decently large walkthrough aviary with closed-off exhibits for the supposedly rare Jamaican iguana, with the main attraction of course being the American, or perhaps more appropriately Caribbean flamingos, at the time sharing their enclosure, which took up most of the right half of the aviary, with Barrow's goldeneye. There are also free-flight scarlet and blue-and-yellow macaws and scarlet ibis.
Even on my 2018 visit that created my initial disdain, I admitted that this aviary was a pretty solid opening for the zoo. Granted, it wasn't as cool as it would've been if it wasn't March, but it was still impressive. As such, the free-flight birds, as was the iguana, but absence doesn't detract from exhibit quality. The birds had plenty space to fly, albiet not a ton to perch on, and the iguana enclosure was large for the animal.
The flamingos are the stars, and while it wasn't huge, the enclosure is very well-designed with its multiple pools and just enough space to hold a large flock of the birds without seeming cramped. The bush dog enclosure down the left path is apparently also part of the complex, and that's pretty good too. We're off to a surprisingly promising start. 8/10
Yukon Creek
So technically you're usually meant to walk down the left path after exiting Caribbean Coast and finish off with this exhibit, but for whatever reason I went down the right path instead as a kid, and decided to this time.
Admittedly, I also did this because I didn't want this to be the finishing exhibit.
If you go the way I did, the path begins with most likely Stone's most popular species, the black bear. This exhibit features the brothers Smoky and Bubba, unless something else took place that I wasn't aware of. What follows are similar-looking, netted-over enclosures for bald eagles, North American porcupine, Artctic fox, and Canada lynx. The forested path ends with a more open yard for reindeer.
Yukon Creek wasn't as bad as I remembered. I do really like the quaint and fairly-immersive theming of the Northern, colder temperate trail it's meant to be, but I can't praise much else. The bald eagle exhibit was under construction, but based on the shape of the aviary, I doubt it will look a ton better.
The porcupine exhibit was small and didn't provide enough climbing material despite the elevation. This is a recurring criticism I have with Stone Zoo, actually, it will come up again in the next area. The lynx and Arctic fox (which was absent) exhibits weren't bad; I actually kind of like the two-part design of the former, but they had very lackluster fencing that just looked kind of like cages.
The black bear enclosure was actually a bit better than I remembered. It's still definitely too small, but not quite as much as I expected. It has a passable water feature and some rocks to climb on. I still don't think it's a very good exhibit, but it's still much preferable to the terrible reindeer exhibit, which is just a tiny, dusty pen contained by weak wire fencing. Not a great complex, unfortunately. 5/10
Treasures of the Sierra Madre
If you come out of Yukon Creek as I did, you'd technically see a different exhibit than this one and eventually see the back end, but I decided to not go too against the grain and just retrace my steps to the entry path and go past the bush dog exhibit as intended. As such, this part will be in the intended order.
Aviaries for roadrunners and the peregrine falcon are what you'll see first, as well as an exhibit for Chacoan peccaries. Then there's an interesting setup with a saloon-style building contains smaller exhibits behind glass on both sides, which also bare exhibits for large cats: cougar on the left, and the jaguar on the right. The "building's" left side has terrariums for reptiles like the Pueblan milk snake, Gila monster, chuckwalla, and spiny iguana. The right side has small mammal nocturnal exhibits for a ringtail (formerly signed as a cacomistle) and a group of Seba's short-tailed bats. There are also two separate exhibits for white-nosed coati.
Much like Yukon Creek, I rather like the theming; this time for a desert environment using manmade setups in ways that make sense for the animal. Thankfully, this is a better trail than that one. Still, it isn't great. The terrariums are decent, especially the surprisingly roomy one for the lizards. I also really like the clever mineshaft cave for the bats; also well-sized. The ringtail has a similar idea, but this one leans too far into the human environment direction that the enclosure looks very unnatural. Unfortunately, the roadrunner and coati enclosures are not very good. The former is far too small and the latter has cheap and wiry fencing, which again lacks the right amount of climbing material.
The falcon aviary is okay, though, as is the peccary exhibit. This used to house coyotes, and the slight rocky terrain hint at this, but it also means it provides enough space. It also features some glass viewing areas, something surprisingly sparse at Stone. ...that alliteration was unintentional. This applies to the two central cat exhibits. The cougar has it better; it's not the best, but it gives the cat enough to climb on in my opinion. This cannot be said for the jaguar, which has an odd wooden tower that doesn't really serve this purpose. It also has a middling metal bin for a pool, which is unideal. Sierra Madre isn't terrible by any means, but it's also a sign of this zoo's overall quality... so far, anyway. 6/10
Animal Discovery Center
I'll make this one brief. It's a tiny herpetarium with terrariums varying from solid to small and unnatural for Eastern box and Blanding's turtles, leopard geckos, and the Pueblan milk snake once again, along with the California king snake and rosy boa. Both the best and the weakest tanks go to the multispecies green-and-black and dyeing poison frogs and Panamanian golden frog, and the Magnificent tree frog respectively. That's about it. 6/10
Treetops and Riverbeds
You'll notice that many exhibit areas at Stone Zoo are quite small, which I suppose is fitting for a zoo this small anyway. I suppose the name is accurate, as there are two enclosures for the black-and-white colobus and a larger setup for white-cheeked gibbons (treetops) and one for North American river otters.
This is one I remember being worse. That said, the colobus monkey exhibit is quite bad, I won't deny that. Despite there being two different enclosures, both are small and have far too little climbing enrichment for a monkey of all creatures. The river otter exhibit, however, I used to think was worse. But like the black bears, it wasn't nearly as bad as I recalled. It could still stand to be larger, with the same applying to their pool, but it's not cramped. The same could go for the gibbons, which have a large net for an enclosure with glass windows on both sides. What they have to climb and swing on doesn't take full advantage of the height, but it's a decent exhibit in other areas. Not awful, not amazing. 6/10
Don't worry, things will get less "middle-of-the-road" soon.
Windows of the Wild
Well, we’re here.
This is a horseshoe-shaped sheltered structure filled with titular indoor exhibits for various animals with no particular theme to tie it all together. Such animals include the two-toed sloth, silvery-cheeked hornbill, rock hyraxes, long-tailed chinchilla, Blanding’s turtles, cotton-top tamarins, red-rumors agouti, the prehensile-tailed porcupine, rhinoceros hornbills, the Hyacinth macaw (at least at the time) and supposedly fennec foxes now. There is also an indoor exhibit for the black-and-white colobus from earlier. Outside the building is a yard for African-spurred tortoises and a small aviary for a barn owl.
I’ll be blunt: this exhibit sucks. Even the people who work at the zoo want to replace it. The barn owl exhibit is okay and the tortoise exhibit is probably fine, since it was barren when I last visited due to the temperature. But the building itself is ugly to look at and the lightning inside is unpleasantly dim. More importantly, almost every enclosure has the same setup of concrete floors with no substrate or plants, brick walls halfheartedly painted, and usually not much else inside. The only enclosures that work to any extent are the multispecies exhibit of tamarins, sloth, and agouti, which is bigger than the others and has actual substrate, and the hyrax exhibit for more interesting terrain. Everything else is as described, and while Stone Zoo is far from perfect, this is by far the worst exhibit it has to offer. 3/10
Alfred Huang North American Crane Exhibit
The name is largely self-explanatory, except that the titular whooping cranes are joined by waterfowl like the Barrow’s goldeneye and hooded merganser. They share a large enclosure with a large pool inside.
Things start to improve here. While simple, this is a very spacious and well-planted exhibit that looks somewhat out of place, but that could be said for any exhibit here. 7/10
Barnyard
What it says on the tin. This is a very small farm area tucked in the corner of the zoo. The barn mostly houses Nubian and Nigerian dwarf goats and Southdown sheep, which have access to a small petting corral. Towards the front there is also an area for chickens and some playground attractions nearby.
I don’t know why, but I have a weird soft spot for this exhibit. It’s nothing special, but it does exactly what it set out to do. I don’t have much to say about it outside of that. 6/10
Himalayan Highlands
First of all, this complex has the exact same name as one at the Bronx Zoo, and that just makes me wish I was there instead.
But anyway, the exhibit starts with a yak exhibit before the barnyard area, but after walking up a small hill, you have the road on your right, and two large enclosures for snow leopards and the markhor.
This is a huge jump in quality from most of what came before. Mostly, because the yak exhibit is a small dust pit, but the other two are surprisingly great. The snow leopard exhibit has a great design, being built into the side of a rocky hill and providing an ideal terrain and varied elevation for the cats. And the markhor exhibit is even better. It’s huge, rocky, and highly dynamic. When this zoo gets it right, it really gets it right. 8/10
Mexican Gray Wolves
In the furthest corner of the zoo is a massive enclosure for this rare subspecies of the iconic gray wolf. And it is fantastic.
It’s essentially as though they put a fence around a natural forested hillside area, which works wonders. It’s massive, dynamic, and has great viewing from different vantage points. One especially cool part is a window inside a fake wolf den, complete with a small replica mother with cubs inside, which looks out onto the very top of the enclosure that oversees everything below. The number of individual wolves inside only makes it better. This is truly the best Zoo New England has to offer. 9/10
Stone Zoo is still not exactly great. I wasn’t expecting it to be revisiting it. But it’s most definitely not the disaster I thought it was, and I honestly had a pretty decent time this run. In my older review, I used the word “bizarre” as the best to describe the zoo, but while it is, it’s not the most accurate possible.
No, the best possible word to describe this place is “inconsistent.”
While most of the zoo varies from solid to just okay, every so often it will blow you away, while in at least one or two spots it drops the bomb. But I think the zoo does what it can with a limited budget and even more limited space. It has embraced its status as a small zoo, and serves its role pretty well.
I doubt I’ll go back any time soon, but Stone Zoo didn’t really deserve the harsher tone I used previously. The middling exhibits were somewhat better than I remembered, the bad stuff was regrettably as bad as I remembered, and the good stuff was even better than remembered as well. It's flawed, but charming and rather unique. It’s also still kind of all over the place, but if you’re in this community and find yourself In Massachusetts, I don’t think you’ll leave thinking a visit here was a waste of time, and you’ll probably be in a fairly decent mood.
Overall rating: 6/10
Speaking of visiting zoos in Massachusetts, after I was done with Stone for the day, I decided I might as well use the free time I had left to visit Franklin Park for the millionth time. And there was a bit of a whiplash.
What do I mean? Well… maybe I’ll get to that later.