Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park Swampdonkey's visit notes for ZooTampa at Lowry Park

[SwampDonkey]

Stopped by the zoo to see the temporary Dinosaur exhibit which was really fun. I also had some time to see the new emu in Australia. Unfortunately I did not have time to go anywhere else. The area in Florida from the otters through the building are all still closed, anticipated 2026 opening.

 

[SwampDonkey]

I went to the zoo a couple of weekends ago, nothing major to report. The alligator exhibit is blocked now, hopefully they will add some more gators when it opens again, they were down to one or two, which is just strange.

 

[SwampDonkey]

Update from September 6 2025:

Canopy Aviary - The open area where the deck was removed has really filled in with plants. I don't have a picture. The kookaburra have been moved into a side aviary, originally it held toco toucan if anyone else remembers. There is a nesting African spoonbill right outside of the kookaburra aviary.

Signs of "coming soon" in the other side aviaries, so hopefully there will be new species soon.

Otherwise I did not have time to see anywhere else other than the African area and there are not really any changes to note. The former silvery cheeked hornbill aviary has a sign for "coming soon", so maybe something new is on the way there too.

 

[SwampDonkey]

I should have mentioned that the expanded/new parking area is open, it also has a nice picnic spot with a number of picnic table (maybe 6?).

 

[SwampDonkey]

We went to the Creatures of the Night event on Friday. It was fine, a little scaled down from previous years but still a good time. As for animals, we only walked through Australia and part of Africa, so I don't have a ton of notes.

The new entrance is open. It is really just a remodel of the look and the security line. The setup seemed to add a line or two for security. The actual ticket booth and entrance ticket scan remain exactly the same.

There is a coming soon sign on the former meerkat/crested porcupine enclosure. Hopefully they bring meerkats back, it is baffling that they removed them in the first place.

I was able to get a nice picture of the blue duiker in the "hornbill aviary" in Africa. I used AI to remove the screen fencing from the image, which is necessary as the aviary has typical screen for the enclosure walls.