Oh, no worries; as long as it's not taking up multiple pages, a little bit of side discussion is great in my opinion. Keeps people engaged with the thread even more
Chapter 7 (Part II): Charting the Uncharted: A First Glimpse at Two Appalachian Zoo Outposts [Mill Mtn]
Several hours north of the small South Carolina zoo, another zoological outpost stands atop a mountain overlooking the small Appalachian city of Roanoke, Virginia. Greenville Zoo might be small, but when it comes to zoos there’s two kinds of small. There’s Greenville Zoo small, where it only takes an hour or so to casually stroll the grounds... and then there’s Mill Mountain Zoo small, where you don’t need a map because standing in the right spot lets you see close to every enclosure in the whole zoo. I can’t remember what the acreage was listed at, but it *definitely* was including service and off-display areas at least. Mill Mountain is one of the smallest zoos both in physical size and in collection I’ve ever been to, being close in size to the tiny Charles Paddock and Micke Grove zoos in California. Despite this, it had a few surprises up its sleeve...
Mill Mountain Zoo
Location: Roanoke, Virginia
Size: ~2.5 acres*
Species Count: 37
Closed Areas: Walk-through Aviary (seasonal); path down to Red Wolves & Screech Owl
Noteworthy Finds: Eurasian Lynx, Pallas’s Cat, Indian Crested Porcupine
Price: $7 admission
Recommended Time: 1 hour or less
Species List:
Mill Mountain Zoo Species List - Dec 2021
Media Gallery:
Mill Mountain Zoo - ZooChat
[*Note for those interested: I use an online Google Maps area calculator tool created by Daft Logic to estimate the acreage of the areas taken up by enclosures and visitor areas; these numbers should give fairly accurate ideas of how large the zoo is for a visitor, even though it may not be how large the zoo’s property actually is. This is the link for that tool:
Google Maps Area Calculator Tool ]
Unlike all of my previous zoo visits thus far – which featured relatively fantastic weather, even into December – it was lightly drizzling when I arrived on the slopes of Mill Mountain and would continue to rain on and off during my hour or so visiting. After stretching my legs in the parking lot, I surveyed my path to the zoo. In a bit of an odd situation, the parking lot used for the zoo is not actually where the entrance to the zoo is located; it’s a 2-minute walk past the park’s visitor center, with the entrance just past the point of visibility around a curve.
After a cheap $7 ticket, I took survey of the map and the zoo standing before me. It’s a different vibe from Greenville; while the former had the construction and design of a larger zoo shrunk down, Mill Mountain reminds me more of other small off-the-beaten facilities I’ve visited; lots of DIY-looking enclosures make up the fairly dense infrastructure of the roughly 2.5 acre place. The setting of the zoo is of interest: located on the edge of a densely forested mountain, it’s surrounded on one side by a wall of nature and on the other side by a steep drop. These features gives the small collection a feeling of being sort of a zoo island in the sky; Pileated Woodpeckers stood guard on the perimeter, and an observation deck by the sandhill crane offered a fantastic view of the bustling city far below.
One thing I will say about this zoo is that it’s not a cold or bad-weather zoo; I only saw 20 of the 37 species signed, with nearly all of the zoo’s avian collection housed elsewhere for the winter and several other animals hiding from the rain and cool weather in their heated dens. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to come back and experience this place in its primer warm seasons; for now however, the photos I’ve taken will give people an idea of what the place generally looks like and has to offer.
The entrance building has two exhibits attached to it: a small grassy yard for Tufted Deer (unseen) and a tiny circular dirt enclosure for Sulcata Tortoise (off-exhibit). Nearby cages hold Virginia Opossum (unseen) and White-crested Laughingthrush (off-exhibit), with a hard-to-notice path winding down past the laughingthrush cage to a small dead-end cove at the zoo train station. Here a Barn Owl shared its wood-and-wire cage with an Eastern Gray Squirrel that I doubt had been invited in.
On the other side of the laughingthrushes is a small domestic barn and dusty, rocky yard the goats and pigs share; the tiny pig outside squealed with delight at the sight of me and immediately come toddling over for snacks.
The cage seen on the other side of the domestic yard was home to a Pallas’s Cat, an animal that always looks to me like it’s perpetually pissed off. A Sandhill Crane yard was situated below it next to the observation deck... and on the other side of that is a surprise marquee animal:
Unperturbed by the weather – balmy by the standards of its native habitat, no doubt – the beautiful snow leopard dozed out in the open of its small mesh exhibit. It reminded me of the Micke Grove Zoo, which also has a lone snow leopard as its biggest draw. Opposite the snow leopard was a wood-and-wire cage for other crowd favorite Red Panda, while a nearby building has viewing windows for two indoor exhibits holding Asian Small-clawed Otters and an Indian Crested Porcupine. Across from this is the zoo’s seasonal walk-through aviary; signed for nearly a dozen species during the warmer months, the December drizzle was braved only by a pair of Red-billed Blue Magpies and a flock of unsigned Wood Ducks the zoo apparently acquired only a week before my arrival. Just past this was a North American rarity and a lifer for me – a Eurasian Lynx, rubbing on scents left for them and casually eating meatballs strewn about the enclosure.
At the back of the zoo was a yard for Red Wolves and a cage for Eastern Screech Owl, neither of which I saw; the path to them was blocked off for maintenance (fortunately there is another Red Wolf yard along the perimeter of the zoo – it’s impossible to get a good look at the exhibit, but I was able to see the wolves through the fence just fine). Just past that was an exhibit for a pair of Bald Eagles and a large grassy yard for American Black Bear – dozing the winter away unseen in a warm den. Should I have been a bear? Some days sleeping through months when snow happens seems like a better idea than what us humans do.
By the time I rounded back over to a couple exhibits for Red Foxes and Northern Raccoons, the rain had started coming down in earnest; fortunately, the last part of the zoo was the “House of Scales and Tails” – in layman’s terms, the reptile house. It certainly looked like an actual house, though I haven’t seen many with this particular color scheme:
I donned my mask to enter the tiny building, only to find that I was the only one in there (during my entire hour-plus visit I only saw maybe 5 or 6 visitors). That was a good thing too; forget about social distancing, two people could scarcely pass each other in the hallway without playing a game of Twister. The single tiny hallway was home to a grand total of 6 reptile species – unsigned Veiled Chameleon, Eastern Box Turtle, Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtle, Burmese Python, Tentacled Snake, and unsigned Boa Constrictor. The interior certainly looked like a small home with herps stashed in it, with the Christmas lights and decorations adding to the small-zoo-on-the-block aesthetic.
Other than a small glass-fronted exhibit outside for a single Wood Turtle, the small yellow reptile house concluded my tour of Mill Mountain. Perhaps it’s inevitable that such a small off-the-path zoo will remain a minor blip on the zoological landscape – but every blip deserves its 15 minutes of fame and a permanent collection in the photo gallery. It’s also not too far off I-81, so it’s worth a visit if you’re ever traveling up or down the Appalachians. Consider coming not in winter and checking the weather though!
Next review will come up either tomorrow or Thursday. Fast food review will be up in a couple hours as it needs editing and I have to rush out for an appointment now.
it's likely an American invention through and through. Even if it was originally derived from an Asian dish, our version is loaded with cream cheese - not exactly a common ingredient in Southeast Asia.
Mill Mountain's enclosures for red fox, raccoon, otter and lynx are way too tiny, plus the red panda and snow leopard exhibits aren't very large either. Many of those cages aren't that out of place for a North American roadside menagerie, but none of them would likely be seen in a western European nation. Having said that, there is a sort of unique joy in visiting out-of-the-way zoos that very few others know about.