Your Greatest Zoo Experiences

pachyderm pro

pachyderm pro

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
The title is about as self-explanatory as it gets. What are some of your favorite zoo experiences of all time? A few of mine include

1) Eating at Mombasa Lagoon in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. A superb outdoor eating area that overlooks a lush shoebill stork island plus dozens of other duck species. This was well complemented by the excellent meal (a salmon burger with tarter sauce, plus parmesan fries and coleslaw) and overall wonderful atmosphere.To this day the greatest experience I had eating in a zoo.

2) Petting a ground cuscus at San Diego Zoo during a Backstage Pass. Very rarely will I ever get close to such a cool animal again.

3) Seeing an active tree pangolin for the first time at the Brookfield Zoo shortly after they went on exhibit.

4) Going behind the scenes in the Caribbean Reef tank at the Shedd Aquarium.
 
Here are some of my favorite zoo experiences.
Buffalo Zoo - feeding an Indian rhino behind the scenes.
Houston Zoo - watching baby Asian elephant Tilly playing in her pool in one of the nicest elephant exhibits I've ever seen.
Detroit Zoo- a gentoo penguin trying to play with a plush gentoo penguin I bought at the gift shop.
Toledo Zoo - hearing hippopotamuses make noise for the first time. They sound just like they do on TV. I'd compare it to a deep staccato laugh. Also, the first time I've ever seen a hippo walk on land (I don't see many hippos, so this is a big deal for me)
Another Toledo Zoo - watching a baby snow leopard run around his enclosure and jumping up and down from this big rock.
San Diego Safari Park - watching so many African elephants play in and drink from their pool all at once. It was a scorching day, so they definitely needed it.
Queens Zoo - my first time ever there, we were at the coyote exhibit which is adjacent to a highway. A police car or ambulance drives by with its siren blaring. All of the coyotes immediately went into a howling fit. One of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced.
New York Aquarium - A walrus and I were "having a conversation." It was making noises, I imitated it, and it made more noises.
Seaworld San Diego - I did a dolphin meet and greet. It was a lot of fun, feeding and petting a dolphin.
 
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St Louis Zoo - photographing king cheetah and getting behind-the-scenes tour of off exhibit cheetah yards.

Project Survival's Cat Haven - private photo shoot with puma cub, black leopard cub, caracal kitten, jaguar cubs (all separate occasions).

Le Parc Des Felins - nothing specific, every visit is fantastic; my favorite zoo by far.

Los Angeles Zoo - my first visit as an adult in 1989 where I saw two tigers sparring which began my lifelong obsession with wild cats and zoo photography.

Zoo Salzburg - photographing snow leopards while it was snowing.
 
I have a few humdingers that come to mind:

Houston Zoo: Getting taken behind the scenes to see their off display avian holding and propagation areas.

African Lion Safari: Ended up bumping into the curator of their bird program, and getting an most excellent and unplanned tour of their entire backstage operation, including their Eastern Loggerhead Shrike breeding area, and meeting some very friendly Blue Throated Macaw chicks.

Unnamed Collection: Visited on a very quite day and got to enter their elephant enclosure and meet one of the residents up close and personal free contact.

San Diego Zoo: Taken behind the scenes and given a bit of a private tour to go see a bird of paradise I had worked with at another facility a few years prior that has recently been transferred to SD.

There's several more that I've been blessed with, but these four have definitely left some of the strongest impressions with me, since not a single one was planned ahead of time and happened purely based on the good faith of said facilities staff.
 
Watching a toddler gorilla and a toddler girl play peak-a-boo and hide-and-go-seek with each other (display glass between them). They both seemed to be on the same level of understanding. Then watching both mothers come over at the same time to put an end to it.
 
My first conscious memory is from a visit to the Bronx Zoo when I was about two. At the time you could feed the elephants and I remember my father offering a peanut to one and instead the elephant reached out and grabbed the entire bag.
 
Doing the behind the scenes meet and greet with orcas as SeaWorld Orlando. I got to do behaviors with one of the orcas and talk with the trainer. It was amazing. A bit pricey but worth it IMO
 
One of my greatest zoo memories hands down was my birthday last November when my gf and I visited the San Diego Zoo Safari Park together for our first time. She lives in Canada and flew out here to visit, we had talked about doing the San Diego Zoo first since she had it on her bucket list since a child. But the moment we stepped foot into the park, we felt like we transported to Jurassic Park. We had set up a behind the scenes tour for Roos and Mates that allowed us to meet a couple animal ambassadors in their holding area as well as feed the kangaroos out of our hands and pet them. We walked around all day, admiring the amazing designs of their exhibits with our same favorites such as Lion Camp and Tiger Trail. Then we stayed the night for Roar and Snore, being serenaded by the pride of lions at night and being the alarm clock we woke up to early morning. The view from our tent was breathtaking: a panoramic view of African Plains with grazing southern white rhinoceros and defassa’s waterbuck eating in proximity to each with giraffes foraging in the background. We spent a whole two days in the park without leaving at all, another highlight would be us taking a special caravan tour available due to our overnight stay where we saw more ungulates feeding, rhinos getting scared that one of them literally passed gas, feeding the giraffes while being in the same exhibit as all the wonderful animals. Yes it was expensive and I paid a pretty penny for it all but comparing to doing an actual trip to Africa would not only be more costly but also more time consuming, it felt like this experience was more than satisfactory and feeling as if I was in the vast open plains of Africa without leaving Souther California. I still love going to the safari park and even though I don’t do the extra experiences now after my initial visit, I still go to enjoy the wonderfully built habitats and numerous species coexisting as they would in their natural range. It’s my favorite zoo and maybe the other zoos I plan to visit will one day replace it but I don’t think it will ever replace the memories :)
 
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