Persephone
Well-Known Member
First of four species lists / reviews. Partially to capture this moment in time, partially to help out the holders of species list makers, partially because my own miserable existence compels me to post my own thread for a brief dopamine rush of internet fame.
I liked Toronto Zoo pretty well overall. There's not a whole lot it does better than any other zoo I've been to, but the overall collection of good exhibits makes it rank pretty highly overall. I would say the pavilions were pretty consistently my favorite part. Africa and the Americas in particular had a really great mix of species. I think that was my first time seeing a loggerhead shrike in a zoo. Anyway, I'll break down thoughts by section. In general, a * after a species name means I didn't see it. I almost always went with the common name the species was signed under. If species show up in multiple exhibits I sign it once, ideally in a mixed species exhibit.
KidsZoo
This was probably great, once. The walkthrough aviary was a cool concept. It was just empty. As were all the ground exhibits in it. And some of the exhibits near it. I like the idea of the tunnels, too, even if I didn't really explore them as I am not a child. I hope they put in a little attention and money to make this place good again. I didn't see the raptor show. I didn't see any ambassador animals in general. Someone else can fill that in if they want. The donkey and alpaca were only viewable from the Zoomobile.
Domestic Goat
Northern Ground Hornbill
Harris’s Hawk*
Striped Skunk
Domestic Ferret*
Eurasian Eagle Owl
Common Raven
Domestic Rabbit
Alpaca, Domestic Donkey
Australasia
I'm not entirely sure what the geographic scope of this pavilion was to be honest. I assume Australia + New Guinea + Pacific Islands + Indonesia, but then the orangutans and Sumatran tiger are half the zoo away. Indo-Malaya in general has a lot of overlap here. I thought the outdoor sections of this area were pretty basic or weak, but the mix of species in the pavilion itself made up for it. One of the wombats was lying on their back with their tongue lolling out. I thought the aviary being made up of interconnected areas that can presumably be separated as needed was a good idea. Uh. I have less to say now ten days later than I thought I would. Can't guarantee I saw all the fish. I just noted one in particular as being absent because others were commenting on how they couldn't find it (I couldn't either).
Indian Peafowl
Short-Beaked Echidna,* Brush-Tailed Bettong*
Laughing Kookaburra
Crested Pigeon, Tawny Frogmouth,* Victoria Crowned Pigeon, Scarlet-Chested Parrot,* Green-Winged Dove,* Scarlet Ibis, Fly River Turtle
Red-Bellied Short Necked Turtle, Black Tree Monitor*
Red-Tailed Green Ratsnake
Emerald Tree Boa
Green Tree Python
Stimson’s Python
Lau Banded Iguana
Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat
Komodo Dragon
Red-Clawed Yabby
Central Bearded Dragon
MacLeay’s Spectres
Thorny Devil Stick Insect
Solomon Islands Skink
Solomon Islands Leaf Frog
White’s Tree Frog
Unsigned Reef Fish
Pot-Bellied Seahorse
Brownbanded Bamboo Shark,* Scribbled Angelfish, Pennant Coral Fish, Mimic Surgeonfish, Blackback Butterflyfish, Clown Triggerfish, Longnose Butterflyfish, Threadfin Butterflyfish, Surgeonfish, Red Lionfish
Moon Jellyfish
Red-Necked Wallaby, Western Gray Kangaroo
Eurasia Wilds
Tur and mouflon are fairly rare in my experience. Always cool to see them both. Two of the tur kids were standing on top of a box and playing with each other, clashing horns and maybe trying to knock the other off. It was adorable. The red panda habitat was suitably large and had trees for both pandas to climb. Is this where the giant pandas were? I genuinely couldn't tell. Half the species only being viewable from the Zoomobile is kind of a bummer, but really a Zoomobile ticket should be considered compulsory for this zoo. Reasonably priced and the best way to get around.
Oh, one of the camels seemed a bit... distressed. Kind of blotchy fur, tongue hanging out of the mouth. I'm sure they're fine. Just maybe a little inbred. Happens with domestics. Baby camel was cute.
Amur Tiger
Mouflon
Red Panda
Bactrian Camel
Snow Leopard*
Lion-Tailed Macaque
Wattled Crane*
West Caucasian Tur, Asian Wild Horse, Domestic Yak
Tundra Trek
This and the Canadian Domain felt pretty redundant with each other. And I thought Canadian Domain was actually stronger overall. There are only four species here. The caribou and polar bear exhibits seemed pretty good for their species. Nothing revolutionary, but relatively big. The wolves seemed to lack privacy. Not sure how they feel about the zipline running above their heads, either. I'm glad the snow geese have an aviary but their pond is pretty much just a kitty pool right now. I do hope that the zoo commits to one area or the other in the future because separated out like this both Tundra Trek and the Canadian Domain are kinda weak. Also, I had the grilled chicken sandwich here and it was... real food? Absolutely wild. Didn't know zoos could do that.
Snow Goose
Arctic Wolf
Caribou
Polar Bear
Americas
This is split into two halves for some reason and it's at least a helpful way to divide the two in quality. The Mayan ruins, uh, didn't look very Mayan. I was having a running conversation with my friend along the lines of "so how racist are these displays?" and we couldn't even really rank the ruins because, like, they didn't even try. No jaguars meant there was just a capybara that, for some reason, was confined to a howdy cage in a pretty spacious exhibit and some flamingoes in an actual aviary. That's always neat to see.
The Americas pavilion was way better. I thought it nailed the constant stream of smaller exhibits with something new seemingly every three feet. Good blend of species, too, from general public heavy hitters like the sloths, otter, and alligator to more niche picks like the shrikes, ferret, and whiptail lizard. This is about the point where I realized that I was not going to be able to finish a species list in a 5.5 hour visit.
Capybara
American Flamingo
Golden Lion Tamarin, Two-Toed Sloth (C. didactylus)
White-Faced Saki, Elegant Crested Tinamou
Great-Horned Owl
Blue and Yellow Macaw
Spectacled Owl
Plush-Crested Jay
Boa Constrictor
Jamaican Boa
Red-Tailed Boa
Green Surf Anemone
American Lobster
Purple Sea Urchin, Strawberry False Coral, Conal Plumrose Anemone
Leather Seastar, Spot Prawn
River Stingray (sp?)
Red-Breasted Piranha*
Eastern Loggerhead Shrike
Black-Footed Ferret*
Lemur Leaf Frog, Panamanian Golden Frog
Puerto Rican Crested Toad
Axolotl
Poison Dart Frogs (Sp?), Unsigned Fish
Eyelash Palm Viper
North American River Otter
Blanding’s Turtle, Midland Painted Turtle
Cuiver’s Dwarf Caiman, Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle
South American Giant Bird Eating Spider
Red Island Bird Eater Tarantula
Black Scorpion*
Ferocious Water Bug
Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
Eastern Lubber Grasshopper
Brazilian Giant Cockroach
Goliath Bird Eating Tarantula
Unsigned Turtle
American Alligator
Spotted Turtle
Florida Gar
Round Goby
Red-Crested Finch, Rufous-Collared Sparrow, Turquoise Tanager, White-Lined Tanager, Oral-Rumped Tanager; Silver-Beaked Tanager, Paradise Tanager [Heard birds, did not see, didn’t really look]
Butterfly Goodeid
Guatemalan Bearded Lizard
Gila Monster
San Esteban Chuckwalla, Grassland Whiptail Lizard*
Snapping Turtle, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Atlantic Salmon*
Timber Rattlesnake
Longnose Dace, Western Blacknose Dace
American Eel
Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake
Africa
I liked the pavilion a lot. Good mix of mid-sized species. I think my favorite might have been the Nile softshell just because of how strange he looked. Also my first time seeing a softshell basking out of the water. On both days I went. In pretty much the exact same spot. The pygmy hippo exhibits seemed small. Everything else was fine. If I have a complaint it's that it was often pretty hard to tell which of the branching paths I was supposed to go down. Taking the wrong one would result in missing exhibits, and sometimes pretty major ones at that.
The savannah was interesting because it's one of the few African areas I've seen that resisted the urge to merge things into one giant savannah. The closest Toronto had was the kudu and two unsigned birds. I got to see the giraffes being fed. Saw the hippos one day. Was surprised how much land they had. Hippos don't tend to get that in the States. Conversely, I was surprised by how little water there was. One zebra seemed to hate me from the moment I walked up to the fence. Unsure what I did to him but I'm deeply sorry.
Species list might be inaccurate on account of missing things in the pavilion. By this point in the day I was very rushed. Didn't try to check for all fish species. Whether or not I marked something as seen doesn't really have any bearing on if it was there or not.
Lowland Gorilla
Spider Tortoise
Violaceous Plantain Eater, Hamerkop, Triangular Spotted Pigeon*
Tomato Frog
Mantella Frog (Sp?)
West African Dwarf Crocodile, Unsigned Fish
Mylochromis melanonotus, Fossorochromis rostratus, Copadichromis chrysonotus, Copadichromis borleyi, Pseudotropheus demasoni, Pseudotropheus aurora, Pseudochromis fainzilberi, Pseudotrophis saulosi, Protomellus sp., [three species whose scientific name is illegible in the photos I took], Labidochromis caeruleus, Placidochromis electra, Melanochromis interruptus, Sciaeonochromis fryeri, Melanochromis auratus, Labeotropheus trewavasae, Labeotropheus fuelleborni, Protomelas taeniolatus, Labidochromis caeruleus
Ngege, Two-Striped White Lip, Perrieri, Ocellated Catfish, Polkadot Upsidedown Catfish
Mottled Bichir, Cichlid (sp?)
Veiled Chameleon*
Meller’s Chameleon*
Naked Mole Rat
African Lungfish
Yellowtail Tetra, Congo Tetra, Feathertail Squeaker Catfish
Mangarahara Cichlid, Betsiboka Killfish, Unsigned Catfish(?)
Radiated Tortoise
Specked Mousebird, Black Crake, Yellow-Vented Bulbul
Sacred Ibis, South African Shelduck, African Spoonbill, African Straw-Colored Fruitbat
Pygmy Hippopotamus
Nile Softshell Turtle
Red River Hog
Aldabra Tortoise, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Grey Crowned Crane
Royal Python
Gaboon Viper
Slender-Tailed Meerkat, South African Crested Porcupine
Masai Giraffe
Warthog
Hippopotamus
Greater Kudu, Unsigned Marabou Stork, Unsigned Southern(?) Ground Hornbill
White Rhino
Cheetah
Grevy’s Zebra
Olive Baboon
African Lion
Common Eland
Spotted Hyena
Ankole-Watusi
African Penguin, Unsigned Cormorant(?)
South African Ostrich*
Indo-Malaya
Between Eurasian Wilds and Australasia I'm not entirely sure what the point of having this as a separate region was? It was fine. The outdoor exhibits generally weren't as good as the ones in the rest of the zoo, orangutans aside, and the pavilion also felt weaker. I think it just had fewer mid-sized species to anchor it like Africa and even the Americas had. I don't have much to say about it. My friend noted that spending the entire pavilion warning about palm oil was kind of undercut by only having one display at the end discussing what palm oil is actually in.
Sumatran Tiger
Black-Throated Laughingthrush, Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove
Nicobar Pigeon, Pied Imperial Pigeon, Cattle Egret, Unsigned Peacock Pheasant, Pheasant Pigeon, Crested Wood Partridge
Tomistoma, Malaysian Painted Turtle
Tentacled Snake
Mekong (? cut off in my photo) Barb, Goldfin tinfoil barb, Tricolor Shark, Tinfoil Barb, Giant Gourami, Bighead Carb, Black Carp, Grass Carp
Red-Lined Torpedo Barb, Western Ghats
Orangutan
Wrinkled Hornbill
Burmese Star Tortoise, Asian Brown Tortoise, Indochinese Box Turtle, Spiny Hill Turtle
Malayan Bonytongue*
Reticulated Python
Hamilton Pond Turtle, White-Handed Gibbon
Boelen’s Python*
Crocodile Newt, Crocodile Lizard*
Monocled Cobra
Black-Breasted Leaf Turtle
Great Hornbill
Indian Rhino
Sulawesi Babirusa
Canadian Domain
I was told the Canadian Domain was skippable. I kind of get the case for that. The hill doesn't help and the species list is all Canadian natives. If we don't split species I've seen everything back there a dozen times before. But I thought it was one of the more pleasant parts of the zoo. Quiet, seclusion, big expansive exhibits for the bison, decent enough aviaries and climbing structures for the raccoons and birds of prey. The grizzly habitat wasn't the strongest but not egregiously bad either. I get why it's skippable but seeing a large bison herd and another with wild turkey running around their yard (which I'm 90% sure were just wild) was maybe my favorite experience in the zoo. Shame that this is the section they're phasing out.
Raccoon
Wood Bison
Steller’s Sea Eagle
Bald Eagle
Brown Bear*
I liked Toronto Zoo pretty well overall. There's not a whole lot it does better than any other zoo I've been to, but the overall collection of good exhibits makes it rank pretty highly overall. I would say the pavilions were pretty consistently my favorite part. Africa and the Americas in particular had a really great mix of species. I think that was my first time seeing a loggerhead shrike in a zoo. Anyway, I'll break down thoughts by section. In general, a * after a species name means I didn't see it. I almost always went with the common name the species was signed under. If species show up in multiple exhibits I sign it once, ideally in a mixed species exhibit.
KidsZoo
This was probably great, once. The walkthrough aviary was a cool concept. It was just empty. As were all the ground exhibits in it. And some of the exhibits near it. I like the idea of the tunnels, too, even if I didn't really explore them as I am not a child. I hope they put in a little attention and money to make this place good again. I didn't see the raptor show. I didn't see any ambassador animals in general. Someone else can fill that in if they want. The donkey and alpaca were only viewable from the Zoomobile.
Domestic Goat
Northern Ground Hornbill
Harris’s Hawk*
Striped Skunk
Domestic Ferret*
Eurasian Eagle Owl
Common Raven
Domestic Rabbit
Alpaca, Domestic Donkey
Australasia
I'm not entirely sure what the geographic scope of this pavilion was to be honest. I assume Australia + New Guinea + Pacific Islands + Indonesia, but then the orangutans and Sumatran tiger are half the zoo away. Indo-Malaya in general has a lot of overlap here. I thought the outdoor sections of this area were pretty basic or weak, but the mix of species in the pavilion itself made up for it. One of the wombats was lying on their back with their tongue lolling out. I thought the aviary being made up of interconnected areas that can presumably be separated as needed was a good idea. Uh. I have less to say now ten days later than I thought I would. Can't guarantee I saw all the fish. I just noted one in particular as being absent because others were commenting on how they couldn't find it (I couldn't either).
Indian Peafowl
Short-Beaked Echidna,* Brush-Tailed Bettong*
Laughing Kookaburra
Crested Pigeon, Tawny Frogmouth,* Victoria Crowned Pigeon, Scarlet-Chested Parrot,* Green-Winged Dove,* Scarlet Ibis, Fly River Turtle
Red-Bellied Short Necked Turtle, Black Tree Monitor*
Red-Tailed Green Ratsnake
Emerald Tree Boa
Green Tree Python
Stimson’s Python
Lau Banded Iguana
Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat
Komodo Dragon
Red-Clawed Yabby
Central Bearded Dragon
MacLeay’s Spectres
Thorny Devil Stick Insect
Solomon Islands Skink
Solomon Islands Leaf Frog
White’s Tree Frog
Unsigned Reef Fish
Pot-Bellied Seahorse
Brownbanded Bamboo Shark,* Scribbled Angelfish, Pennant Coral Fish, Mimic Surgeonfish, Blackback Butterflyfish, Clown Triggerfish, Longnose Butterflyfish, Threadfin Butterflyfish, Surgeonfish, Red Lionfish
Moon Jellyfish
Red-Necked Wallaby, Western Gray Kangaroo
Eurasia Wilds
Tur and mouflon are fairly rare in my experience. Always cool to see them both. Two of the tur kids were standing on top of a box and playing with each other, clashing horns and maybe trying to knock the other off. It was adorable. The red panda habitat was suitably large and had trees for both pandas to climb. Is this where the giant pandas were? I genuinely couldn't tell. Half the species only being viewable from the Zoomobile is kind of a bummer, but really a Zoomobile ticket should be considered compulsory for this zoo. Reasonably priced and the best way to get around.
Oh, one of the camels seemed a bit... distressed. Kind of blotchy fur, tongue hanging out of the mouth. I'm sure they're fine. Just maybe a little inbred. Happens with domestics. Baby camel was cute.
Amur Tiger
Mouflon
Red Panda
Bactrian Camel
Snow Leopard*
Lion-Tailed Macaque
Wattled Crane*
West Caucasian Tur, Asian Wild Horse, Domestic Yak
Tundra Trek
This and the Canadian Domain felt pretty redundant with each other. And I thought Canadian Domain was actually stronger overall. There are only four species here. The caribou and polar bear exhibits seemed pretty good for their species. Nothing revolutionary, but relatively big. The wolves seemed to lack privacy. Not sure how they feel about the zipline running above their heads, either. I'm glad the snow geese have an aviary but their pond is pretty much just a kitty pool right now. I do hope that the zoo commits to one area or the other in the future because separated out like this both Tundra Trek and the Canadian Domain are kinda weak. Also, I had the grilled chicken sandwich here and it was... real food? Absolutely wild. Didn't know zoos could do that.
Snow Goose
Arctic Wolf
Caribou
Polar Bear
Americas
This is split into two halves for some reason and it's at least a helpful way to divide the two in quality. The Mayan ruins, uh, didn't look very Mayan. I was having a running conversation with my friend along the lines of "so how racist are these displays?" and we couldn't even really rank the ruins because, like, they didn't even try. No jaguars meant there was just a capybara that, for some reason, was confined to a howdy cage in a pretty spacious exhibit and some flamingoes in an actual aviary. That's always neat to see.
The Americas pavilion was way better. I thought it nailed the constant stream of smaller exhibits with something new seemingly every three feet. Good blend of species, too, from general public heavy hitters like the sloths, otter, and alligator to more niche picks like the shrikes, ferret, and whiptail lizard. This is about the point where I realized that I was not going to be able to finish a species list in a 5.5 hour visit.
Capybara
American Flamingo
Golden Lion Tamarin, Two-Toed Sloth (C. didactylus)
White-Faced Saki, Elegant Crested Tinamou
Great-Horned Owl
Blue and Yellow Macaw
Spectacled Owl
Plush-Crested Jay
Boa Constrictor
Jamaican Boa
Red-Tailed Boa
Green Surf Anemone
American Lobster
Purple Sea Urchin, Strawberry False Coral, Conal Plumrose Anemone
Leather Seastar, Spot Prawn
River Stingray (sp?)
Red-Breasted Piranha*
Eastern Loggerhead Shrike
Black-Footed Ferret*
Lemur Leaf Frog, Panamanian Golden Frog
Puerto Rican Crested Toad
Axolotl
Poison Dart Frogs (Sp?), Unsigned Fish
Eyelash Palm Viper
North American River Otter
Blanding’s Turtle, Midland Painted Turtle
Cuiver’s Dwarf Caiman, Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle
South American Giant Bird Eating Spider
Red Island Bird Eater Tarantula
Black Scorpion*
Ferocious Water Bug
Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
Eastern Lubber Grasshopper
Brazilian Giant Cockroach
Goliath Bird Eating Tarantula
Unsigned Turtle
American Alligator
Spotted Turtle
Florida Gar
Round Goby
Red-Crested Finch, Rufous-Collared Sparrow, Turquoise Tanager, White-Lined Tanager, Oral-Rumped Tanager; Silver-Beaked Tanager, Paradise Tanager [Heard birds, did not see, didn’t really look]
Butterfly Goodeid
Guatemalan Bearded Lizard
Gila Monster
San Esteban Chuckwalla, Grassland Whiptail Lizard*
Snapping Turtle, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Atlantic Salmon*
Timber Rattlesnake
Longnose Dace, Western Blacknose Dace
American Eel
Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake
Africa
I liked the pavilion a lot. Good mix of mid-sized species. I think my favorite might have been the Nile softshell just because of how strange he looked. Also my first time seeing a softshell basking out of the water. On both days I went. In pretty much the exact same spot. The pygmy hippo exhibits seemed small. Everything else was fine. If I have a complaint it's that it was often pretty hard to tell which of the branching paths I was supposed to go down. Taking the wrong one would result in missing exhibits, and sometimes pretty major ones at that.
The savannah was interesting because it's one of the few African areas I've seen that resisted the urge to merge things into one giant savannah. The closest Toronto had was the kudu and two unsigned birds. I got to see the giraffes being fed. Saw the hippos one day. Was surprised how much land they had. Hippos don't tend to get that in the States. Conversely, I was surprised by how little water there was. One zebra seemed to hate me from the moment I walked up to the fence. Unsure what I did to him but I'm deeply sorry.
Species list might be inaccurate on account of missing things in the pavilion. By this point in the day I was very rushed. Didn't try to check for all fish species. Whether or not I marked something as seen doesn't really have any bearing on if it was there or not.
Lowland Gorilla
Spider Tortoise
Violaceous Plantain Eater, Hamerkop, Triangular Spotted Pigeon*
Tomato Frog
Mantella Frog (Sp?)
West African Dwarf Crocodile, Unsigned Fish
Mylochromis melanonotus, Fossorochromis rostratus, Copadichromis chrysonotus, Copadichromis borleyi, Pseudotropheus demasoni, Pseudotropheus aurora, Pseudochromis fainzilberi, Pseudotrophis saulosi, Protomellus sp., [three species whose scientific name is illegible in the photos I took], Labidochromis caeruleus, Placidochromis electra, Melanochromis interruptus, Sciaeonochromis fryeri, Melanochromis auratus, Labeotropheus trewavasae, Labeotropheus fuelleborni, Protomelas taeniolatus, Labidochromis caeruleus
Ngege, Two-Striped White Lip, Perrieri, Ocellated Catfish, Polkadot Upsidedown Catfish
Mottled Bichir, Cichlid (sp?)
Veiled Chameleon*
Meller’s Chameleon*
Naked Mole Rat
African Lungfish
Yellowtail Tetra, Congo Tetra, Feathertail Squeaker Catfish
Mangarahara Cichlid, Betsiboka Killfish, Unsigned Catfish(?)
Radiated Tortoise
Specked Mousebird, Black Crake, Yellow-Vented Bulbul
Sacred Ibis, South African Shelduck, African Spoonbill, African Straw-Colored Fruitbat
Pygmy Hippopotamus
Nile Softshell Turtle
Red River Hog
Aldabra Tortoise, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Grey Crowned Crane
Royal Python
Gaboon Viper
Slender-Tailed Meerkat, South African Crested Porcupine
Masai Giraffe
Warthog
Hippopotamus
Greater Kudu, Unsigned Marabou Stork, Unsigned Southern(?) Ground Hornbill
White Rhino
Cheetah
Grevy’s Zebra
Olive Baboon
African Lion
Common Eland
Spotted Hyena
Ankole-Watusi
African Penguin, Unsigned Cormorant(?)
South African Ostrich*
Indo-Malaya
Between Eurasian Wilds and Australasia I'm not entirely sure what the point of having this as a separate region was? It was fine. The outdoor exhibits generally weren't as good as the ones in the rest of the zoo, orangutans aside, and the pavilion also felt weaker. I think it just had fewer mid-sized species to anchor it like Africa and even the Americas had. I don't have much to say about it. My friend noted that spending the entire pavilion warning about palm oil was kind of undercut by only having one display at the end discussing what palm oil is actually in.
Sumatran Tiger
Black-Throated Laughingthrush, Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove
Nicobar Pigeon, Pied Imperial Pigeon, Cattle Egret, Unsigned Peacock Pheasant, Pheasant Pigeon, Crested Wood Partridge
Tomistoma, Malaysian Painted Turtle
Tentacled Snake
Mekong (? cut off in my photo) Barb, Goldfin tinfoil barb, Tricolor Shark, Tinfoil Barb, Giant Gourami, Bighead Carb, Black Carp, Grass Carp
Red-Lined Torpedo Barb, Western Ghats
Orangutan
Wrinkled Hornbill
Burmese Star Tortoise, Asian Brown Tortoise, Indochinese Box Turtle, Spiny Hill Turtle
Malayan Bonytongue*
Reticulated Python
Hamilton Pond Turtle, White-Handed Gibbon
Boelen’s Python*
Crocodile Newt, Crocodile Lizard*
Monocled Cobra
Black-Breasted Leaf Turtle
Great Hornbill
Indian Rhino
Sulawesi Babirusa
Canadian Domain
I was told the Canadian Domain was skippable. I kind of get the case for that. The hill doesn't help and the species list is all Canadian natives. If we don't split species I've seen everything back there a dozen times before. But I thought it was one of the more pleasant parts of the zoo. Quiet, seclusion, big expansive exhibits for the bison, decent enough aviaries and climbing structures for the raccoons and birds of prey. The grizzly habitat wasn't the strongest but not egregiously bad either. I get why it's skippable but seeing a large bison herd and another with wild turkey running around their yard (which I'm 90% sure were just wild) was maybe my favorite experience in the zoo. Shame that this is the section they're phasing out.
Raccoon
Wood Bison
Steller’s Sea Eagle
Bald Eagle
Brown Bear*
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