I ran back in for just over an hour yesterday morning before we had to check out at the hotel, allowing me to complete the Flight Cage and Red Rocks, with brief glimpses of chimpanzees, grizzly bear, polar bear, and humboldt penguin on the way back to the entrance... although I did briefly get lost by historic hill and stumbled on the prairie dog exhibit and found myself by the sifaka instead of the birds. The nile lechwe was happy to see me.
I'd like to write a review but I also want to shout out a lot of things right now!
I love love love that the bear habitats feel like they took existing grottos and extended them. I think that's a great approach that respects the exhibit's history while being a welcome improvement for the welfare of their residents.
The Penguin-Puffin building and Sea Lion Sound were breathtaking. I've always found sea lions a bit less interesting compared to seals, but SLS really helped the sea lions pop for me, it was so fun to see them following an employee and later a visitor's finger across the tunnel!
The Herpetarium reminded me how much I love reptiles, which isn't a feeling I experience at a lot of zoos. It was overwhelming in the best way possible. I often say the sign of a great exhibit to me is when an animal I've seen many times or is not especially interested in is able to pop out at me -- loved the turtles and the snakes a lot here, and even with the loss of some heavy hitters (crocodiles, anaconda, komodo) it says a lot that this is still an incredible exhibit. The terrariums are larger than so many I've seen. I personally think it would be great to see a Small Mammal House in this style.
I've never heard a word about Jungle of the Apes but I honestly thought it was an incredible building even with almost no animals indoors. More naturalistic than many indoor primate buildings I've seen, huge scale.
I really, really want to revisit River's Edge. South America was empty save capybara and a lot of Africa and Asia was inactive or absent as well as a result of the rain. I apparently missed out on elephant activity while in the shade. It was GREAT to see THREE hippos at once! I was able to appreciate the crafting of the exhibit and I still saw hyena, wild dog, capybara, hippo, distant elephants and rhinos, but it felt like I was there at the wrong time.
Red Rocks was great. I do wish the arrangements made a little more sense - except that having okapi next to giraffe was a treat, wow! Got a photo with both relatives together! The big cat exhibit was interesting -- not something to hold up as an example of world-class exhibitry I'm sure but I've rarely felt so CLOSE to the big cats before!
I wasn't really feeling the Primate House/Canopy Trails complex and would say that was the biggest disappointment. I love the innovation of the concept but it felt like two dozen exhibits for a handful of species. I wouldn't call it a bad exhibit by any stretch though.
Pretty much every single animal I've seen was in the best or biggest accommodation I've seen them in, actually, or at least in a difficult situation to judge. (ie the rotational canopy trails)
I'll post later about rarities I did and did not see.
A quick former species question -- has Saint Louis ever held wolves on display at any time? I didn't notice any mention in the former species thread either. What about gibbons?
