DAY 44: Tuesday, August 24th
ZOO/AQUARIUM REVIEW #38: Utah’s Hogle Zoo
Hogle Zoo’s Website:
https://www.hoglezoo.org/
Zoo Map:
https://www.hoglezoo.org/docs/pdfs/09_Map_lg.pdf
Utah’s Hogle Zoo deserves to be in the book “America’s Best Zoos”, but I’d personally rank it somewhere between #55 to #60 of the very best of U.S. zoological establishments. There are many mediocre exhibits, a lot of wasted space around the grounds, and yet there is one outstanding area called “Asian Highlands” that offers zoo visitor’s close-up encounters with 5 cat species within the confines of a Himalayan village. That area is so impressive that any cat lover should immediately tour this zoo, and there are a total of 11 cat species at Hogle. The good news about the zoo is that it has broken its all-time attendance record for the past 4 consecutive years (over 1 million visitors in 2009) and there are ambitious plans for the future. “Rocky Shores” is due to open in spring of 2012 and several of the older exhibits will be demolished within the next year.
THE BEST:
Asian Highlands – Anyone who adores thematic exhibit complexes will love this section of the zoo, and it is by far and away the best attraction at Hogle. Every building is constructed with stone bricks, and there is a cool new Asian-themed eating establishment called the “Cat Wok Café” where my wife and I had steaming teriyaki chicken rice bowls while we stared out at the surrounding mountains. Prayer flags, a well-designed “Grandma’s House” with Nepalese and Tibetan artifacts, bicycles, paintings and other tiny details all combine to create the feeling that one is strolling through a village in Tibet or Nepal. The Utah mountainside aids in the immersive context of the area, and this 2006 exhibit complex is borderline spectacular.
There are 5 cat habitats there: an Amur leopard exhibit that is rocky, steep, and naturalistic and easily amongst the best of its kind; an average-sized Amur tiger enclosure that is also built upon a steep slope; an above-average, lushly planted snow leopard habitat; and realistic but standard exhibits for Pallas’ cats and Siberian lynxes. The 3 tigers on show (all one-year old cubs) jumped in the water, ran around their enclosure, ventured over the heads of visitors on a wide walkway, and created havoc with each other in their netted exhibit. The entire area is almost flawless, other than tiny complaints such as the tigers can also be seen from the back of their enclosure and thus they lack a little privacy, and of course one can always point out that the exhibits could always be a tad larger. Overall this is an awesome addition to the zoo and one of the best cat complexes at any American zoo. It is certainly far superior to “Big Cat Falls” at the Philadelphia Zoo, which is another recently constructed cat complex that is good but not great like “Asian Highlands”.
Primate Forest – This area was completed in 1997 and features 3 large, lush, outdoor netted enclosures for colobus monkeys, spider monkeys, and Francois + Hanuman langurs. All 3 habitats are beautiful and allow for lots of space, and there is an indoor area for brown capuchin monkeys, as well as a smaller indoor/outdoor exhibit for a troop of golden lion tamarins.
THE AVERAGE:
Great Apes – I believe that the indoor viewing building was built in the 1960’s, but the outdoor enclosures were added in later decades and feature one area for orangutans and one for gorillas. Both exhibits feature wooden jungle gyms and lush foliage, but visitors look down upon the apes and it is difficult to get great viewing opportunities. These two exhibits are more than adequate and feature lots of vegetation, but they need more apes and better visitor areas.
Discovery Land – This is the children’s section of the zoo, and for kids it is top-notch as there is a train, large playground, a fantastic burrowing tunnel that has pop-up bubbles in the rabbit, skunk and prairie dog enclosures; a huge waterfowl pond with trumpeter swans and at least 8 more species of birds; a farmyard zone with Angora goats and Navajo sheep; a bison paddock that can be only viewed via the train ride; side habitats for Chacoan peccaries and cougars; and a desert region with enclosures for ocelots, Channel Island foxes and many smaller animals in terrariums.
The flaws in this area are these: the glare on the glass in the Desert region is so atrocious that the small terrariums are difficult to see into; the ocelot and fox exhibits are tiny and about 12 feet across and maybe 12 feet wide; and cougars are shy and secretive cats and yet the noisy train clatters by about 6 feet from their exhibit. Overall this area of the zoo is better than most, and there is also a small discovery theatre that has daily animal presentations.
Small Animal Building – This old building has a small walk-through jungle area at its center that features free-roaming two-toed sloths, green iguanas and at least ten species of birds. There are 3 long, curving hallways of exhibits (Tropics, Temperate, Desert), with many reptiles and amphibians on the inside walls in attractive terrariums. The outer walls of the galleries have a long list of intriguing creatures in average to poor enclosures. Many of the glass tanks are simply much too small for their inhabitants, and here is a partial list of species: Arabian wild cat, sand cat, black-footed cat, meerkat, mara, rock cavy, cottontail rabbit, bat-eared fox, Siamese crocodile (indoor viewing), African-crested porcupine, cotton-top tamarin, two-toed sloth, Wied’s marmoset and rock hyrax.
Nature’s Nightmares – This exhibit area is found in the zoo’s old “Tropical Rainforest” building, and every year the zoo features a rotating set of animals and a new theme. There has been a white alligator display, a Madagascar-themed area, and this year there are king vultures, bats, spiders, millipedes, piranhas, scorpions, centipedes and other “nightmares” in basic terrariums. I was told that there are rumors that this aging building might be demolished in favour of expanding the zoo’s main restaurant (“The Beastro”) but I heard that from a volunteer employee and thus nothing has been confirmed at this point. It actually isn’t such a bad idea for the zoo to have a new exhibit area every year within an ancient structure, as there was certainly a line-up of people right when the building opened a full hour after the zoo opened.
THE WORST:
Elephant Encounter – The decision to place this relatively new exhibit complex (2005) into my “worst” category will definitely shock some folks, but it is thoroughly deserving of its placement. The entire area is apparently 2 acres in size, and the visitor zones are top-notch. There is close-up viewing of both the 3 African elephants and 2 white rhinos, and the “African Lodge” building has pachyderm artifacts and a cool, noisy, full-sized statue of an elephant that had kids lined up to touch. The pool for the elephants is also terrific, but if one peers closely at this area past all of the bells and whistles then it is shocking at how tiny the space is allocated for the elephants.
The downside to the exhibit is that there is an elderly, 50 year-old female elephant in one habitat and the 24 year-old mother of 1 year-old “Zuri” in the second habitat. I’m not sure if the elephants rotate or not, but I visited that area twice and throughout the day the mother and baby were in the puny, ridiculously tiny encounter area. If that enclosure were used strictly for demonstrations then that is perfectly fine, but at the elephant talk a keeper said that the two elephants mainly live in that tiny area. The larger enclosure with the nice pool is also far too small, and of all the AZA-accredited zoos with elephants off of the top of my head I think that Hogle has the second smallest elephant exhibit of any zoo. Only Audubon has a tinier enclosure for the world’s largest mammal, and so it is a major surprise that “Elephant Encounter” was just built 5 years ago as in my opinion it is already well past its due date and amongst the smallest of its kind in all of North America. The two white rhinos are fairly old and in their mid-30’s, and they also have one very tiny rhino yard because so much of their space is taken up with visitor viewing areas and mock-rock backdrops. What should be done is the zoo should keep only one of the species, and that would effectively double their living space.
Primate Building – This ancient monstrosity is ugly as hell, stinky as a peccary and in desperate need of some loving care via a bulldozer. Mandrills have an iron-barred cage that is painfully small, black howler monkeys have a similar metal cage, black-and-white ruffed lemurs, ring-tailed lemurs and Schmidt’s guenons all are in either outdoor metal cages or inside mock-rock nightmares. The whole place is disgustingly outdated, and even the white-handed gibbons seemed embarrassed to be found in such a hellhole.
Random Enclosures – There are odds n’ ends exhibits scattered all around the zoo, and almost none of them are very impressive. Tiny metal bird aviaries with macaws, bald eagles, various parrots and even a black-and-white ruffed lemur are all in need of removal as they are nothing but eyesores; an African black-footed penguin pool, llama yard, red panda exhibit (that one is okay), bobcat cage and Aldabra/leopard tortoise enclosure are all lumped together in one random zone and all are being bulldozed by next year. I’d never seen Aldabra tortoises being exhibited behind chain-link fencing, as usually there is barely any kind of barrier, and the ugly fencing made it one brutally difficult enclosure to be able to properly see the animals. There are signs up detailing the fact that some of the animals will be moving to different AZA institutions in the future, and that their exhibits will be completely razed to make way for “Rocky Shores”.
Also around the zoo is a puny and badly antiquated giraffe yard; a pair of desert bighorn sheep/wild turkey enclosures with chain-link fencing; more chain-link for gray wolves; a cement Bactrian camel yard; red kangaroos and Bennett’s wallabies behind ugly chain-link and rare Siamese crocodiles outside in a tiny pool.
THE FUTURE:
“Rocky Shores” is under construction and due to open in spring of 2011, and I was told that the llama, red panda, penguin, bobcat and Aldabra tortoise enclosures are all going to be bulldozed within a year. Signs up at the zoo state that the exhibits will in fact be completely razed in order to make way for polar bears, seals, and possibly foxes, owls, wolves and whatever else the zoo finalizes as a species list. Two old bear grottoes have already been partially destroyed (hooray!!) and an employee told me that the African Savanna area might also face the bulldozer. On my visit the Grevy’s zebras had departed the zoo, the only cheetah had also left for another zoo, and the Egyptian geese, ostrich and springbok all were in the old cheetah yard. A large-scale African Savanna is the next project after the Arctic zone, and it will likely go near where the Bactrian camel/great ape area is located, with the camel yard to be bulldozed and the ape building to receive a massive overhaul.
I’ve seen the schematic drawings for “Rocky Shores” on the zoo’s website, and I have a sneaky suspicion that the zoo might have to opt for grizzly bears instead of polar bears for the exhibit, and the last I heard was that perhaps the zoo might have both species and possibly rotate them through two different habitats. Kansas City Zoo just opened a brand-new polar bear complex this summer, and they even had a sign up pointing out that they were only able to obtain a single male bear due to the scarcity of the species in North American zoos.
OVERALL:
Before “Elephant Encounter” Hogle Zoo hadn’t opened a major, large-scale exhibit in over 25 years, and that fact becomes apparent once one has toured the grounds. Old buildings for great apes, small animals, rotating exhibits and primates are well past their due date and if those 4 creaking structures are not demolished then millions of dollars should be spent in refurbishing and updating them to the standards of 21st century, modern zoos. “Asian Highlands” is so impressive that it makes the zoo worthwhile, but after that area there is a lot of mediocrity across the grounds. With record-breaking attendance and a new, multi-million dollar Arctic region set to open in a year and a half at least the future is looking bright, but there still needs to be a total overhaul of many of the main buildings.
By demolishing exhibits for black bears, llamas, red pandas, penguins, tortoises, bobcats and possibly African animals then “Rocky Shores” is obviously ridding the zoo of many randomly assorted animals in subpar enclosures. Hopefully the new area will be as terrific as “Asian Highlands”, as then perhaps Hogle Zoo can begin to systematically create world-class exhibit complexes to go along with its decent animal collection. With a new entrance, gift shop, train station, guest services area and events pavilion all being unveiled to the public in 2001, a wildlife theater in 2004, a children’s carousel in 2008 and beginning an annual Christmas themed “Zoolights” display in 2007 the zoo has made great strides in pleasing the many visitors that enjoy the establishment by adding amenities for humans. With the addition of “Asian Highlands” and the upcoming “Rocky Shores” perhaps the zoo will begin to focus even more attentively on its animal inhabitants.
We enjoyed our visit there, but we still much preferred the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.
