Oakland Zoo Wolf treks: Oakland Zoo

TheEthiopianWolf03

Well-Known Member
Well I’ve been waiting on this for a while.

With schoolwork and other personal things happening lately to me, I haven’t had the time to do this review. I actually went to the zoo about a week ago.

The review will be formatted in a categorical way to make things easier to pinpoint and talk about.

Okay let’s start! This is Wolf Treks: Oakland Zoo


Animals:
The zoo has around 660 animals representing many species. The younger children will see some of the classic zoo animals like African elephants, lions, giraffes, and tigers. Zoo lovers get a chance to see two species of flying fox (A rare treat in the west coast), hamadryas baboons, and common elands.


Exhibits:
The zoo is split into 3 main areas. An African savannah, a tropical rainforest, and a children’s zoo. The children’s zoo is large and filled with the majority of reptiles in the zoo. Ringed tailed, black and blue eyed, and the newly added crowned lemur can be seen in the lemur exhibit while playful otters, lazy American alligators, and curious Malayan and island flying foxes are doing their natural behaviour for all the public to see.

The tropical rainforest has animals from Africa, Asia, and South America. One of the best sun bear exhibits I’ve seen is located in this area. The three sun bears are always up to something and will quickly become your favourite animals in the zoo. Next to the exhibit is the muntjac but good luck trying to find it as I’ve never gotten to see it in it’s exhibit. The lar gibbons are always active but sadly, the female died recently. The new South American aviary houses three species of macaw, great cusarow, and red rumpled agoutis. The only bad part about this area is the chimpanzee exhibit which need a MAJOR fix up.


The final exhibit is a bit self explanatory but still is impressive. The Africa savannah exhibits has one of the biggest African elephant enclosure (Which would be perfect for breeding) in the USA. Lions also have a large exhibit. Two aviaries, vervet monkeys, spotted hyenas, reptiles, and meerkats are some of the animals you will see in this area. A large baboon exhibit and a nice warthog exhibit are also in the area. The African veldt has giraffes, elands, and Egyptian geese. The exhibit is an okay size but needs to be bigger.


Attractions:
The zoo has a few rides in a little attraction area like a small roller coaster and carousel but I never go on those. The one ride that is worth going on in that area is the train. It takes you to the emus and walaroos. The sky ride is fun but the newly added gondola is the best. It takes you up to amazing views of the Bay Area. The restaurant has good food also.


Prices: Adult tickets are $22 and kids are $18. The parking is $10. It starts getting even more expensive when you count the lunch up at the landing cafe near the gondola. Membership covers most of that though.


Verdict?: The Oakland zoo is a nice small zoo with amazing animals, exhibits, and fun activities for everyone. This zoo was the first zoo I went to as a young toddler and inspired me to what I am today. It’s the best zoo in Northern California in my opinion. With the addition of California trail, the zoo will become even better. There are little improvements that need to be made of course but with the effort they put into California trail, it looks like this zoo will become one of the major zoos of the area.

Until I trek some more,

TheEthiopianWolf
 
I can’t wait to plan a visit. I will probably tag San Francisco and San Diego on too, if I can. Any other recommendations nearby?
 
Monterey bay aquarium has ocean sunfish and many other hard to find zoo species.

LA zoo is the only zoo in America to house bald uarkis. They also have mountain tapirs.


Fresno Chaffee zoo has an amazing African exhibit and sea lion exhibit along with Guam rails, red wolves, and sloth bears (I know you have an interest for bears)
 
Quite a rich area for choice, it seems. I definitely have an interest in sloth bears (I’ve actually only ever seen them once before, in Berlin when I went last month!), and also sea lions.

I definitely plan to visit Pier 39, and although it only opens to the public on certain days so I would need to time my trip carefully, I fancy a visit to the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre.

Is Aquarium of the Bay any good? Or nothing special?
 
@beccasunbear San Francisco is across the bay from Oakland and both are considered the same general area, which is locally referred to as "the Bay Area". There are a plethora of zoological facilities in the Bay Area alone. These are Oakland Zoo, San Francisco Zoo, California Academy of Sciences, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, CuriOdyssey, Happy Hollow Zoo, Aquarium Of The Bay, Golden Gate Park Bison Paddock. Of course there are lots of non-zoo things to see in the area as well. You could easily spend an entire vacation in the Bay Area and not see everything.

San Diego is a must see if you can swing it, but I hope you realize it is 500 miles from San Francisco to San Diego, which means an additional flight or a ten hour car trip (driving on the opposite side from what you are used to). If you have time you can break up the trip as there are some major sights along the way. Monterey Bay Aquarium may be America's best aquarium, the new Fresno Chaffee Zoo Africa expansion is phenomenal and above Fresno is Cat Haven, a personal favorite of mine (and just down the road from Kings Canyon National Park and the adjoining Sequoia National Park, also a personal favorite).

How long will you be in California?
 
Here are the 15 'zoos' that I’ve visited that are all within an approximate 1.5-hour radius of the Bay Area:

Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco)
California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)
- Steinhart Aquarium
California Raptor Center (Davis)
CuriOdyssey (San Mateo)
Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary (Folsom)
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (San Jose)
Lindsay Wildlife Experience (Walnut Creek)
Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito)
Micke Grove Zoo (Lodi)
Oakland Zoo (Oakland)
Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (Palo Alto)
Safari West Wildlife Preserve (Sonoma County)
San Francisco Zoo (San Francisco)
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (Vallejo)
Sulphur Creek Nature Center (Hayward)
 
Wow. Unreal. That is quite an impressive choice! I am going to be very busy!

I haven’t got into the finer details of my plans as yet, but I’ll probably stay in the area for around a week or so if I can, and then if I have the time and the money I will try to tag San Diego on to the end. I have been told by a few people it is the best zoo in the world, so I really shouldn’t miss it.
 
Update: Californian Trail

I just went to the zoo to check out the Californian trail. Before I start talking about the actual exhibit I want to mention to everyone to NEVER GO TO ANY ZOO ON A HOLIDAY. The line for the zoo was going into the freeway and it was a two hour wait even though the zoo just opened. It was crazy. I’ll get to the actual exhibit now.


Californian trail is by far the best exhibit at the zoo. Each exhibit for each species (Bald eagle, Grey wolf, Californian condor, Jaguar, mountain lion, black bear, brown bear, and purebreed bison) were very spacious and some of the largest in the nation. I’ll even argue that the condor, black bear, and bison exhibits are the best in the nation. I still have a few issues with it though.

There is a lack of smaller wildlife from California in this exhibit. The smallest animal you would see on this exhibit would be the bald eagles. I would have liked to see a nice diversity of species in this exhibit. I would personally add bighorn sheep, Channel Island fox, an estuary aviary, and the beavers that were originally planned for the exhibit. The Californian conservation building was the most disappointing with no live animals. Feels like a waste of space. I’d put yellow-legged frogs, western pond turtles, alemeda whip snakes, desert tortoises, burrowing owls, Californian quails, banana slugs, salamanders, and other native herps. It’s a lot to ask so maybe a small handful from that list.


Another problem was the viewing of the animals. As I suspected, the only animals with glass viewing were the bears and jaguar. Everything else is behind a mesh, which is fine but for exhibits like the wolf exhibit, make it harder to see the two wolves they have. It’s going to suck looking for the wolves when they have pups as a zookeeper notes that the pair are becoming very close with each other and they expect some pups next spring or late winter. The wolve exhibit is another classic Oakland exhibit as you need to look down into the exhibit to see the animal.



The play area looks okay for the kids but this is the fourth or fifth area they have for kids to play on and it just feels like the land could be used for something else (I’d keep the playground on the trail but the others need to go). The view is amazing especially near the bison exhibit. Overall it’s a flawed region but definitely the best. I hope Oakland can start working on the lower half of the zoo now that they are done with this major project. Chimps definitely need a new exhibit.
 
I agree with just about everything you say regarding California Trail. The lack of small animal exhibits is appalling, especially for such an expensive exhibit. As a photographer, however, I will tell you that mesh is actually preferable to glass. Most zoo glass makes minor distortions in clarity and color (in a photo) whereas a telephoto lens can shoot through mesh with tack sharp results.

I also agree that visiting the zoo on Labor Day was a huge mistake. What were you thinking? And a minor note on spelling (no big deal, I am just being particular). Grey wolf (with an e in grey) is the British spelling. In America it would be gray wolf (with an a in gray).
 
I agree with just about everything you say regarding California Trail. The lack of small animal exhibits is appalling, especially for such an expensive exhibit. As a photographer, however, I will tell you that mesh is actually preferable to glass. Most zoo glass makes minor distortions in clarity and color (in a photo) whereas a telephoto lens can shoot through mesh with tack sharp results.

I also agree that visiting the zoo on Labor Day was a huge mistake. What were you thinking? And a minor note on spelling (no big deal, I am just being particular). Grey wolf (with an e in grey) is the British spelling. In America it would be gray wolf (with an a in gray).


Well Labor Day was the only open time I had to visit the exhibit but it was definitely worth the wait. I didn’t know about the lens thing nor about the spelling of grey. The more you know I guess!
 
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