Earlier this month I have taken my family for a two-week-long road trip across Ontario and Quebec provinces of Canada, and it goes without saying that we have visited some zoos along the way. My original plan only included 3 facilities on the itinerary – namely Toronto Zoo, Quebec Aquarium (with the main focus on harp seals and Atlantic walrus), and Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien. I was especially keen to visit the latter zoo because it appeared to be excellent based on a few YouTube videos that I saw, yet out of the way and very little know even among the zoo nerds (with no photos in the ZooChat gallery, for example, and missing from all “Top Zoos in Canada” lists that I looked at). I decided to limit myself to the above institutions, since I felt that my family may not put up with more than three zoos (actually I have considered adding Montreal Biodome to the agenda, but that facility is currently closed for renovations). However, my wife and kids had such a good time on the trip that very soon I was able to squeeze in two more facilities that I’ve always wanted to visit – African Lion Safari in Ontario and Zoo de Granby in Quebec. Finally, while doing standard touristy things during our stay in Toronto, we have realized that the new Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is literally next door to the CN Tower which we were visiting anyways, and is open very late (and the entrance fee is included in the Toronto City Pass which we’ve purchased). Of course, after climbing on top of the CN Tower we have spent an hour or so at the Aquarium. In the end, we have visited a grand total of six facilities, and I will review them and share my impression in the upcoming posts.
Zoo_enthusiast's Canadian Roadtrip
- Thread starter zoo_enthusiast
- Start date
In case anyone is interested, here is our full itinerary:
· Day 1 – drive from Maryland to Niagara Falls; night at Niagara Falls
· Day 2 – morning in Niagara Falls; drive to Toronto; night in Toronto (we actually visited CN Tower and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada on that night, thanks for late opening hours)
· Day 3 – Toronto Zoo
· Day 4 – last full day in Toronto
· Day 5 – African Lion Safari; drive to Montreal
· Day 6-Day 7 – full days in Montreal (no zoos, with Biodome closed)
· Day 8 – leaving Montreal; drive to Saint Felicien
· Day 9 – Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien; drive to Quebec City
· Day 10-12 – full days in Quebec City (with Quebec Aquarium and Montmorency Falls on day 11)
· Day 13 – leaving Quebec City; drive to Granby
· Day 14 – Zoo de Granby; drive to Gananoque (Ontario)
· Day 15 – Trip to Thousand Islands from Gananoque
· Day 16 – Drive home
· Day 1 – drive from Maryland to Niagara Falls; night at Niagara Falls
· Day 2 – morning in Niagara Falls; drive to Toronto; night in Toronto (we actually visited CN Tower and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada on that night, thanks for late opening hours)
· Day 3 – Toronto Zoo
· Day 4 – last full day in Toronto
· Day 5 – African Lion Safari; drive to Montreal
· Day 6-Day 7 – full days in Montreal (no zoos, with Biodome closed)
· Day 8 – leaving Montreal; drive to Saint Felicien
· Day 9 – Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien; drive to Quebec City
· Day 10-12 – full days in Quebec City (with Quebec Aquarium and Montmorency Falls on day 11)
· Day 13 – leaving Quebec City; drive to Granby
· Day 14 – Zoo de Granby; drive to Gananoque (Ontario)
· Day 15 – Trip to Thousand Islands from Gananoque
· Day 16 – Drive home
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I've visited the majority of the zoos in your itinerary. I hope you enjoy your trip!
Thanks! We did enjoy our trip a lot and I hope to go back someday when Biodome opens.
Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
This will be a very brief review. As explained above, our decision to visit the place was pretty much spontaneous, based on the proximity to CN Tower and convenient opening hours. So spontaneous, in fact, that I didn’t even have my camera with me, and so took no pictures. We entered the aquarium at about 9 PM and spent over an hour there. Due to the late hour, there were very few other guests, which made our visit more pleasant.
The aquarium opened in 2013, so everything felt new and modern. Some galleries clearly had kids as main audience, and my kids loved the aquarium overall. However, as a zoo nerd who has National Aquarium in Baltimore as a home aquarium, and have visited 20 or so aquariums and oceanariums in the past (including Shedd Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific, and two Sea World parks), I was not too impressed. The shark tunnel was nice, the paddlefish are always interesting to see, but I felt that there was nothing that I haven’t seen before in numerous other places. But then I am not too interested in aquariums, unless they exhibit some interesting sea mammals, birds, or rarities such as whale sharks or mola mola. Nevertheless, for the great city that lacked marine attractions previously this is definitely a nice addition (though I do wish they would set the bar higher and added something unique that would turn this aquarium into a must-see place for zoo enthusiast).
This will be a very brief review. As explained above, our decision to visit the place was pretty much spontaneous, based on the proximity to CN Tower and convenient opening hours. So spontaneous, in fact, that I didn’t even have my camera with me, and so took no pictures. We entered the aquarium at about 9 PM and spent over an hour there. Due to the late hour, there were very few other guests, which made our visit more pleasant.
The aquarium opened in 2013, so everything felt new and modern. Some galleries clearly had kids as main audience, and my kids loved the aquarium overall. However, as a zoo nerd who has National Aquarium in Baltimore as a home aquarium, and have visited 20 or so aquariums and oceanariums in the past (including Shedd Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific, and two Sea World parks), I was not too impressed. The shark tunnel was nice, the paddlefish are always interesting to see, but I felt that there was nothing that I haven’t seen before in numerous other places. But then I am not too interested in aquariums, unless they exhibit some interesting sea mammals, birds, or rarities such as whale sharks or mola mola. Nevertheless, for the great city that lacked marine attractions previously this is definitely a nice addition (though I do wish they would set the bar higher and added something unique that would turn this aquarium into a must-see place for zoo enthusiast).
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And here is the total list of aquariums and oceanariums that I've visited so far (not listed in any particular order):
United States (“true/indoor” aquariums):
1. National Aquarium in Baltimore
2. Georgia Aquarium
3. Shedd Aquarium
4. Monterey Bay Aquarium
5. Aquarium of the Pacific
6. Adventure Aquarium in Camden (New Jersey)
7. Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas)
8. New England Aquarium
9. Newport Aquarium
10. Steinhart Aquarium (part of California Academy of Sciences)
11. Dallas World Aquarium (which is more an “indoor rainforest zoo”, rather than an aquarium)
United States (“outdoor” aquariums and oceanariums, feel more like “marine zoos”)
12. New York Aquarium
13. Mystic Aquarium
14. Maui Ocean Center
15. Miami Seaquarium
16. Sea World Orlando
17. Sea World San Diego
Canada:
18. Marineland at Niagara Falls (visited during my first trip to Canada in early 2000s)
19. Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
20. Quebec Aquarium (mostly outdoor, review coming up)
Other:
21. The Reef Atlantis (inside the Atlantis resort in Bahamas)
22. Barcelona Aquarium
The list does not inside aquariums located inside the zoos.
United States (“true/indoor” aquariums):
1. National Aquarium in Baltimore
2. Georgia Aquarium
3. Shedd Aquarium
4. Monterey Bay Aquarium
5. Aquarium of the Pacific
6. Adventure Aquarium in Camden (New Jersey)
7. Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas)
8. New England Aquarium
9. Newport Aquarium
10. Steinhart Aquarium (part of California Academy of Sciences)
11. Dallas World Aquarium (which is more an “indoor rainforest zoo”, rather than an aquarium)
United States (“outdoor” aquariums and oceanariums, feel more like “marine zoos”)
12. New York Aquarium
13. Mystic Aquarium
14. Maui Ocean Center
15. Miami Seaquarium
16. Sea World Orlando
17. Sea World San Diego
Canada:
18. Marineland at Niagara Falls (visited during my first trip to Canada in early 2000s)
19. Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
20. Quebec Aquarium (mostly outdoor, review coming up)
Other:
21. The Reef Atlantis (inside the Atlantis resort in Bahamas)
22. Barcelona Aquarium
The list does not inside aquariums located inside the zoos.
Nice!
I kinda felt the same way as you about Ripley's aquarium - a bit meh. But Toronto zoo is outstanding! We saw the wombats and snow leopards really well, but I haven't visited since they still had pandas. I'm a bit disappointed that they got amur tigers instead of amur leopards because it would have meant that they had all the big cats, but.... it's still a great zoo!
I've read somewhere that initially they were trying to build it in the Niagara Falls area, but the deal fell through
Toronto Zoo
This zoo is extensively covered on multiple ZooChat threads and in the photo gallery, so I won’t be doing exhibit by exhibit review. This was actually my second visit and it was apparent that the collection, while still great, is not what it was in its heyday. When I first visited the zoo in early 2000s, it was almost overwhelming and I remember being tremendously excited about being there and seeing so many new species for the first time (it needs to be said that this in the early days of my zoo-visiting career and in those days Toronto Zoo was just the 6th big name zoo that I’ve ever visited, after Smithsonian, Philadelphia, Bronx, and two San Diego facilities). In those days Toronto still had lots of species that were rare or missing from many US zoos – musk ox, Dall’s sheep, gaurs, wisent, South-African fur seals, dholes, Barbary apes, Tasmanian devils, Malayan tapirs, etc. And, with this being my 6th major zoo, there were many species there that I now take for granted but saw for the first time in Toronto: clouded leopard, mandrill, spotted hyena, moose, wombat, and others. The elephants were still there, and the zoo felt very complete, with every continent (except for Antarctica) well represented.
I think that this geographic diversity still a major strength of the zoo and what makes it memorable (to me at least) – too many zoos with geographic layout today limit themselves to just 2 or 3 continents (with African section almost obligatory one, followed by generic Asia, North America, and Australia limited to kangaroo walk-about). Toronto really takes things to the next level – Asia is represented by two sections (Indo-Malaya and Eurasia), America has 3 sections (Canada, Arctic Tundra, and Americas for everything South of Canada), and Australia section still has lots of species besides kangaroos (including wombats, echidnas, tree-kangaroos, and a single swamp wallaby). However, many of those sections (especially Eurasia and, to a lesser extent, Canada) lost many species and feel emptier than during my first visit. Also, they appear to be getting sloppier with the geographical theming – ring-tailed lemurs have now replaced lion-tailed macaques in the Indo-Malayan section, and the same species is also exhibited in the African pavilion instead of the mandrills. Besides the fact that I would still much rather see mandrills and lion-tailed macaques, why have two exhibits for ringtail lemurs, let alone in the geographical areas where they are completely out of place?
Nevertheless, this is still the largest and most diverse zoo in Canada, and definitely feels like a great zoo (despite some exhibits clearly looking dated). There are still some notable species left – Causasian turs, the only chamois in North America, swamp wallaby, etc. I would definitely love to have a zoo of this size as my home zoo, and the place is still almost too large for a single-day visit (especially if one wants to return to certain areas to look for species missed during initial walk around).
This zoo is extensively covered on multiple ZooChat threads and in the photo gallery, so I won’t be doing exhibit by exhibit review. This was actually my second visit and it was apparent that the collection, while still great, is not what it was in its heyday. When I first visited the zoo in early 2000s, it was almost overwhelming and I remember being tremendously excited about being there and seeing so many new species for the first time (it needs to be said that this in the early days of my zoo-visiting career and in those days Toronto Zoo was just the 6th big name zoo that I’ve ever visited, after Smithsonian, Philadelphia, Bronx, and two San Diego facilities). In those days Toronto still had lots of species that were rare or missing from many US zoos – musk ox, Dall’s sheep, gaurs, wisent, South-African fur seals, dholes, Barbary apes, Tasmanian devils, Malayan tapirs, etc. And, with this being my 6th major zoo, there were many species there that I now take for granted but saw for the first time in Toronto: clouded leopard, mandrill, spotted hyena, moose, wombat, and others. The elephants were still there, and the zoo felt very complete, with every continent (except for Antarctica) well represented.
I think that this geographic diversity still a major strength of the zoo and what makes it memorable (to me at least) – too many zoos with geographic layout today limit themselves to just 2 or 3 continents (with African section almost obligatory one, followed by generic Asia, North America, and Australia limited to kangaroo walk-about). Toronto really takes things to the next level – Asia is represented by two sections (Indo-Malaya and Eurasia), America has 3 sections (Canada, Arctic Tundra, and Americas for everything South of Canada), and Australia section still has lots of species besides kangaroos (including wombats, echidnas, tree-kangaroos, and a single swamp wallaby). However, many of those sections (especially Eurasia and, to a lesser extent, Canada) lost many species and feel emptier than during my first visit. Also, they appear to be getting sloppier with the geographical theming – ring-tailed lemurs have now replaced lion-tailed macaques in the Indo-Malayan section, and the same species is also exhibited in the African pavilion instead of the mandrills. Besides the fact that I would still much rather see mandrills and lion-tailed macaques, why have two exhibits for ringtail lemurs, let alone in the geographical areas where they are completely out of place?
Nevertheless, this is still the largest and most diverse zoo in Canada, and definitely feels like a great zoo (despite some exhibits clearly looking dated). There are still some notable species left – Causasian turs, the only chamois in North America, swamp wallaby, etc. I would definitely love to have a zoo of this size as my home zoo, and the place is still almost too large for a single-day visit (especially if one wants to return to certain areas to look for species missed during initial walk around).
I fully agree with you. It is a great zoo. They actually had amur tigers in the same exhibit during my first visit in early 2000s, so I didn't feel any disappointment over that. Actually I thought it was rather cool - not many zoos showcase two tiger subspecies nowadays in separate exhibits (I'm sure there are more zoos that do that, but in the US only Bronx, Smithsonian, and Louisville come to mind). Leopards would be nice too.Nice!
I kinda felt the same way as you about Ripley's aquarium - a bit meh. But Toronto zoo is outstanding! We saw the wombats and snow leopards really well, but I haven't visited since they still had pandas. I'm a bit disappointed that they got amur tigers instead of amur leopards because it would have meant that they had all the big cats, but.... it's still a great zoo!
Yeah, I mean in continental Europe you of course have Parc des Felins, Prague and a few others, and it is nice to have two tiger subspecies, especially two so different in characteristics, but I would love to see leopards to complete the big cats (apart from Sunda clouded leopard)
African Lion Safari
As I mentioned at the start of this thread, African Lion Safari was not on our original itinerary. But then, after spending a couple of day in Toronto my wife decided to take a day off and go shopping. My responsibility then was to entertain our boys for half a day, after which we would meet with my better half and drive to Montreal. And I found years ago that drive-through safaris always work very well (much better than zoos) when I need to spend time with my sons while the mom is away. When we visit regular zoos, I frequently become preoccupied with taking photos and waiting for the perfect shot, and my boys (if left unsupervised) tend to wander around or get bored. On the other hand, when we visit drive-through safaris they stay in the car and cannot wander around even when I take pictures. Safaris typically have small walking sections with kid-friendly activities, so after driving around the preserves once we usually spend some time there, after which I try to do a second drive through before leaving the place. And so, on our past family vacations in Florida and Texas we would always go to a nearby safari park (Lion Country Safari in Florida and Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in Texas) whenever my wife wanted a day of shopping.
And that’s how African Lion Safari was added to the itinerary, especially after we realized that the shopping mall where we could leave my wife is only 30 minutes away from the place. I have heard about this park before (in particular, about their successful Asiatic elephant program) and was always interested in visiting. Unfortunately to get there we had to drive one and half hours in the wrong direction (west), and this added over three hours to the overall driving we had to do that day to get to Montreal (which is already six hours away from Toronto). In hind sight, it would make much more sense for my wife to go shopping (and for me to go to African Lion Safari) on our way from Niagara Falls to Toronto (since that’s roughly where the Safari Park is located), and not on our way from Toronto to Montreal, but it is what it is…
To make the long story short, the boys and I arrived at the park in the early afternoon, right in time to catch the 12:30 PM Elephant Swim demonstration. By the time we arrived the presentation has already begun, and the elephants were in the water. Fortunately, the parking lot was right next to the lake, so we parked and went straight there. The demonstration takes place twice a day (12:30 and 6 pm in summer, with slightly varying hours on the weekends). Basically, the trainers walk the elephants (during our visit we saw 4 females and 3 calves) across the park to a large lake where the animals play for some time before being led back. The lake is surrounded by a very low flimsy fence, and the visitors stay right next to the fence. This was the first of several big surprises I had during my visit. I have seen the elephants worked in full contact before, but never felt so close to them (and I have visited 130 zoos and related animal facilities in the US and abroad) and the barrier so inadequate. The elephants were happily spraying the public with water and the overall experience was very special. The trainers and their helper dogs were on the lake shore, and we have seen a couple of elephant-dog interactions. At the end the keepers asked the public to back away from the fence, cordoned off the passage, and walked the herd back to their enclosure on the other side of the park.
After that we got back our car and drove around the Game Reserves, of which there are seven. The first, Nairobi Sanctuary, has watussi cattle, llamas, white storks and African crowned cranes. In the same reserve there are cheetahs, but they are fenced in a couple separate enclosures on the side of the reserve. This is actually one of my photographer pet peeves in safari parks, as it is next to impossible to take a decent picture through a layer of fencing while staying in a car with windows rolled upL Unfortunately, African Lion Safari has quite a few interesting species (which I would love to photograph) that are fenced in like this and don’ t roam the reserves.
Next I had my second surprise of the day. Simba Lion Country reserve has a pride of free-roaming lions, which I something that I have never experienced in the US. In US safari parks, large carnivores are always separated from the car traffic by fencing and hot wire. I suppose in Canada there is less of a fear of visitors doing dumb things and then suing the place? In any case, lions in this reserve and also in next reserve (called Timbavati Lion Country, and housing white lions, as opposed to normal tawny lions in the first reserve) were free roaming and a pair of white lions (a female and what I believe was a castrated, or in any case maneless, male) crossed the road right in front of my car and started caressing each other right next to it.
Next was Wankie Bushland Trail reserve with free-roaming olive baboons (with an option to bypass the baboons, as they can and apparently do damage cars – we did not take that option and drove right through the troop of baboons, and they have completely ignored our car and all swarmed around a tourist bus instead), a small herd of zebu, and some bongos (which we’ve only seen a glimpse of, as they were laying the dense forest grove). According to the park’s website, the same reserve also houses Malayan tapirs which would be very cool to see (I’ve never seen one in a safari park), but we haven’t seen any.
Rocky Ridge Veldt is a typical African savanna reserve with ostrich, plains zebras, giraffes, white rhinos, addax, elands, wildebeest, scimitar oryx, and aoudad. All of these I’ve seen in other safari parks before. Next was Australasia reserve with yaks, nilgai, Pere David’s and sika deer (and, according to the website and signage, Himalayan tahrs, which we haven’t seen). There were three separate fenced enclosures within that preserve – one housed kangaroos (we’ve only seen reds, but they also have some western greys according to the website), the other one had an Indian rhino (first time I saw this species in a safari park, though not in a drive-through situation), and the last one had a Sichuan takin (again, first in a safari park for me). The last reserve is called The Americas and contains herds of bison, wapiti, and fallow deer, as well as a separate fenced in enclosure with markhor goats (yet again, never saw them in a safari park before)
After driving around the reservers, I have parked again, and we took a short “African Queen” boat cruise. The boat cruises on a lake with 6 or 7 islands housing primates (such as spider monkeys, lar gibbons, siamangs, ringtail and ruffed lemurs), and unfortunately (and as usual on such attractions) the cruise is not very photographer-friendly, with the boat never stopping and very limited opportunities for observing and photographing islands’ inhabitants.
The park also has a small walking section with kid-friendly activity, petting corner (which has cages with black lemurs and squirrel monkeys, besides the more typical rabbits, alpacas, goats, and such), and three separate show stadiums (for parrots, birds of prey, and elephants). We didn’t go to any of the shows due to time constraints (we were still facing 7-hour drive to Montreal on that day, and I didn’t want to leave too late), but did spend some time checking out their bird cages. I was particularly impressed by the strength of their bird of prey collection. It contained a number of rare species, 3 of which (yellow-headed turkey vulture, striated caracara, and ferruginous hawk) I have never seen before. Their other birds of prey on exhibit included a tawny eagle, bald and Steller’s sea eagles, king and cinereous vultures (the latter sharing the enclosure with marabou storks), and a number of owl species (including Chaco and boobook, which I haven’t seen before either, but which were impossible to photograph due to the thick fence of their cages). Besides the birds of prey, the park has macaws, Sarus cranes, flamingos, and some other species.
After photographing the birds, we walked to the elephant compound where we observed the same herd that earlier in the day participated in Elephant Swim. Only one elephant enclosure can be viewed from a walking trail, and others are behinds the scenes and screened by trees (though I saw a glimpse of a tusker bull in a yard behind those trees). The elephant compound is the last stop on the walking trail. After realizing that we’ve seen and done everything except for the shows and riding the “scenic railway” (which possibly allows the view of the elephant compound from another angle), I let my kids play on a playground, after which we got back in our car, drove through the reserves one more time, picked up my relaxed and happy wife, had a quick dinner in the shopping mall, drove to Montreal for 7 hours, and checked in in our hotel at 1 am the next morning
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the African Lion Safari, mainly because of several wholly unexpected and notable differences between the Canadian park and similar facilities in the US. None of the other safari parks that I visited had free-ranging lions in drive-through sections. None of them had elephants walking across the park among the public. On the other hand, I was always under impression that both experiences are fairly common on the other side of the pond. I have always thought of English-speaking Canada as culturally-similar to the US, but my visit to African Lion Safari truly felt like visiting a zoological facility in a different country, which was very cool.
As I mentioned at the start of this thread, African Lion Safari was not on our original itinerary. But then, after spending a couple of day in Toronto my wife decided to take a day off and go shopping. My responsibility then was to entertain our boys for half a day, after which we would meet with my better half and drive to Montreal. And I found years ago that drive-through safaris always work very well (much better than zoos) when I need to spend time with my sons while the mom is away. When we visit regular zoos, I frequently become preoccupied with taking photos and waiting for the perfect shot, and my boys (if left unsupervised) tend to wander around or get bored. On the other hand, when we visit drive-through safaris they stay in the car and cannot wander around even when I take pictures
. Safaris typically have small walking sections with kid-friendly activities, so after driving around the preserves once we usually spend some time there, after which I try to do a second drive through before leaving the place. And so, on our past family vacations in Florida and Texas we would always go to a nearby safari park (Lion Country Safari in Florida and Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in Texas) whenever my wife wanted a day of shopping.And that’s how African Lion Safari was added to the itinerary, especially after we realized that the shopping mall where we could leave my wife is only 30 minutes away from the place. I have heard about this park before (in particular, about their successful Asiatic elephant program) and was always interested in visiting. Unfortunately to get there we had to drive one and half hours in the wrong direction (west), and this added over three hours to the overall driving we had to do that day to get to Montreal (which is already six hours away from Toronto). In hind sight, it would make much more sense for my wife to go shopping (and for me to go to African Lion Safari) on our way from Niagara Falls to Toronto (since that’s roughly where the Safari Park is located), and not on our way from Toronto to Montreal, but it is what it is…
To make the long story short, the boys and I arrived at the park in the early afternoon, right in time to catch the 12:30 PM Elephant Swim demonstration. By the time we arrived the presentation has already begun, and the elephants were in the water. Fortunately, the parking lot was right next to the lake, so we parked and went straight there. The demonstration takes place twice a day (12:30 and 6 pm in summer, with slightly varying hours on the weekends). Basically, the trainers walk the elephants (during our visit we saw 4 females and 3 calves) across the park to a large lake where the animals play for some time before being led back. The lake is surrounded by a very low flimsy fence, and the visitors stay right next to the fence. This was the first of several big surprises I had during my visit. I have seen the elephants worked in full contact before, but never felt so close to them (and I have visited 130 zoos and related animal facilities in the US and abroad) and the barrier so inadequate. The elephants were happily spraying the public with water and the overall experience was very special. The trainers and their helper dogs were on the lake shore, and we have seen a couple of elephant-dog interactions. At the end the keepers asked the public to back away from the fence, cordoned off the passage, and walked the herd back to their enclosure on the other side of the park.
After that we got back our car and drove around the Game Reserves, of which there are seven. The first, Nairobi Sanctuary, has watussi cattle, llamas, white storks and African crowned cranes. In the same reserve there are cheetahs, but they are fenced in a couple separate enclosures on the side of the reserve. This is actually one of my photographer pet peeves in safari parks, as it is next to impossible to take a decent picture through a layer of fencing while staying in a car with windows rolled upL Unfortunately, African Lion Safari has quite a few interesting species (which I would love to photograph) that are fenced in like this and don’ t roam the reserves.
Next I had my second surprise of the day. Simba Lion Country reserve has a pride of free-roaming lions, which I something that I have never experienced in the US. In US safari parks, large carnivores are always separated from the car traffic by fencing and hot wire. I suppose in Canada there is less of a fear of visitors doing dumb things and then suing the place? In any case, lions in this reserve and also in next reserve (called Timbavati Lion Country, and housing white lions, as opposed to normal tawny lions in the first reserve) were free roaming and a pair of white lions (a female and what I believe was a castrated, or in any case maneless, male) crossed the road right in front of my car and started caressing each other right next to it.
Next was Wankie Bushland Trail reserve with free-roaming olive baboons (with an option to bypass the baboons, as they can and apparently do damage cars – we did not take that option and drove right through the troop of baboons, and they have completely ignored our car and all swarmed around a tourist bus instead), a small herd of zebu, and some bongos (which we’ve only seen a glimpse of, as they were laying the dense forest grove). According to the park’s website, the same reserve also houses Malayan tapirs which would be very cool to see (I’ve never seen one in a safari park), but we haven’t seen any.
Rocky Ridge Veldt is a typical African savanna reserve with ostrich, plains zebras, giraffes, white rhinos, addax, elands, wildebeest, scimitar oryx, and aoudad. All of these I’ve seen in other safari parks before. Next was Australasia reserve with yaks, nilgai, Pere David’s and sika deer (and, according to the website and signage, Himalayan tahrs, which we haven’t seen). There were three separate fenced enclosures within that preserve – one housed kangaroos (we’ve only seen reds, but they also have some western greys according to the website), the other one had an Indian rhino (first time I saw this species in a safari park, though not in a drive-through situation), and the last one had a Sichuan takin (again, first in a safari park for me). The last reserve is called The Americas and contains herds of bison, wapiti, and fallow deer, as well as a separate fenced in enclosure with markhor goats (yet again, never saw them in a safari park before)
After driving around the reservers, I have parked again, and we took a short “African Queen” boat cruise. The boat cruises on a lake with 6 or 7 islands housing primates (such as spider monkeys, lar gibbons, siamangs, ringtail and ruffed lemurs), and unfortunately (and as usual on such attractions) the cruise is not very photographer-friendly, with the boat never stopping and very limited opportunities for observing and photographing islands’ inhabitants.
The park also has a small walking section with kid-friendly activity, petting corner (which has cages with black lemurs and squirrel monkeys, besides the more typical rabbits, alpacas, goats, and such), and three separate show stadiums (for parrots, birds of prey, and elephants). We didn’t go to any of the shows due to time constraints (we were still facing 7-hour drive to Montreal on that day, and I didn’t want to leave too late), but did spend some time checking out their bird cages. I was particularly impressed by the strength of their bird of prey collection. It contained a number of rare species, 3 of which (yellow-headed turkey vulture, striated caracara, and ferruginous hawk) I have never seen before. Their other birds of prey on exhibit included a tawny eagle, bald and Steller’s sea eagles, king and cinereous vultures (the latter sharing the enclosure with marabou storks), and a number of owl species (including Chaco and boobook, which I haven’t seen before either, but which were impossible to photograph due to the thick fence of their cages). Besides the birds of prey, the park has macaws, Sarus cranes, flamingos, and some other species.
After photographing the birds, we walked to the elephant compound where we observed the same herd that earlier in the day participated in Elephant Swim. Only one elephant enclosure can be viewed from a walking trail, and others are behinds the scenes and screened by trees (though I saw a glimpse of a tusker bull in a yard behind those trees). The elephant compound is the last stop on the walking trail. After realizing that we’ve seen and done everything except for the shows and riding the “scenic railway” (which possibly allows the view of the elephant compound from another angle), I let my kids play on a playground, after which we got back in our car, drove through the reserves one more time, picked up my relaxed and happy wife, had a quick dinner in the shopping mall, drove to Montreal for 7 hours, and checked in in our hotel at 1 am the next morning
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the African Lion Safari, mainly because of several wholly unexpected and notable differences between the Canadian park and similar facilities in the US. None of the other safari parks that I visited had free-ranging lions in drive-through sections. None of them had elephants walking across the park among the public. On the other hand, I was always under impression that both experiences are fairly common on the other side of the pond. I have always thought of English-speaking Canada as culturally-similar to the US, but my visit to African Lion Safari truly felt like visiting a zoological facility in a different country, which was very cool.
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Yi Qi
Well-Known Member
Only one is there. Its a male that was getting aggressive and had to be separated.
I've ridden it before, and I can conform it does. The train basically takes you around a lake, and is home to wildlife which lives around it. I myself have seen nothing more then some canada geese and ducks, turtles, and a great blue heron if i'm lucky. Otherwise, the ride has reindeer and fallow deer on the ride (and some other hoofstock like llamas and donkeys at times), as well as bactrian camels being viewable if I remember correctly. Generally its not worth your time unless you want to see the elephants behind the scenes.
I've faced the same situation with these antelope. Makes for a hard-to get photo, but a nice look at the species and how they can blend in to their environment too!
Just uploaded some of my photos from African Lion Safari to the gallery
Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien
I first read about Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien in the 1994 edition of The Zoo Book: A Guide to America’s Best (by Allen Nyhuis). That book, unlike the latter 2008 edition, had a chapter dedicated to the best foreign zoos, and Canada had 4 facilities briefly described: Calgary, Toronto, Granby, and Saint Felicien. The Saint Felicien Zoo was described in the book as “one of the largest, best, and most natural zoos in Canada”, and after visiting it I can concur that it is one of the most natural zoos that I’ve ever been to (and my current list is at exactly 130 zoos and aquariums, most of them in the US and Israel).
The zoo appears to be little known. When I started planning our Canadian road trip, I was surprised that there are no photos from the zoo at all in the ZooChat gallery. Even google queries for “top 10 zoos in Canada” don’t bring back any results. For example the Top 10 Zoos in Canada website lists obscure little places such as Magnetic Hill Zoo and Cherry Brook Zoo in New Brunswick, but fails to mention Saint Felicien (this is NOT an intent to bad-mouth the 2 New Brunswick’s facilities which I’ve never visited, but simply highlight of how little-known Saint Felicien is). This is probably due to remote location – the zoo is situated in the middle of the Province of Quebec, in the town of Saint Felicien on the shore of Lake Saint Jean, and is far away from Quebec’s major cities (3 hours’ drive from Quebec City and 5 hours’ drive from Montreal). Also, Quebec is a French-speaking province, so most of the information about this zoo is available in French. Fortunately for me, their website is bi-lingual, and includes the historical overview which I will summarize next.
The zoo opened in 1960. At the time it was a regular zoo with lions, elephants, giraffes, and such. In 1970s new land was purchased and the Nature Park Trails section was opened in two phases. The section was dedicated to free-ranging Canadian wildlife which the guests could only view while riding the screened-in train. In the 1990s the zoo phased out all non-native species and decided to focus exclusively on the Canadian fauna (the Native Park Trails section already was focusing on the indigenous species, and the rest of the zoo followed suite). However, in early 2000s the collection plan was altered again to include cold-hardly species from other regions of the world with climate similar to that of Canada, and the zoo now has some species from north and central Asia, and African highlands.
The scenery in the zoo is gorgeous. The place is well forested, and there is a fast river (complete with rapids and small waterfalls) that flows right through the zoo, with about one third of the zoo (not including Nature Park Trails the train ride section) built on an island (called Ile Bernard) in the middle of that river, and connected to the rest of the zoo by three or four bridges. I am not sure how the place would look in the middle of Canadian winter, but in August everything is very scenic. The zoo (except for the Nature Park Trails train ride which I will come to later) is also a photographer’s dream. There are no cages, and all exhibits are very natural and open. Usually such natural exhibits mean that the animals could be tough to find, since there is an abundance of hiding places. However, at Saint Felicien regular feeding and enrichment sessions are scheduled pretty much for all carnivore and primate species several times a day, so even the animals that would normally stay hidden come out several times a day and can be easily observed and photographed.
As explained above, the zoo has a pedestrian section and a train-ride Nature Park Trails section. According to the website, the length of the train tracks is over 7 kilometers (over 4 miles) and the ride takes over an hour (which I now can confirm from experience). I’ll start with the train ride, even though we actually rode the train in the middle of the day. In hindsight this was probably a mistake, because in the middle of the day animals tend to stay hidden in the forests, and during an hour-long ride we saw surprisingly little. However, I wanted to photograph carnivore species in the pedestrian section in the morning knowing that they will be more active, therefore we could only do the ride in the early afternoon. If I could visit the zoo on a second day, I would do the ride first. In any case, the ride is also very scenic and enjoyable, and passes through large sections of evergreen and deciduous forest, open prairies (complete with real prairie-dog town!), and many lakes, as well as replicas of the colonist farm, lumberjack camp, Native American village, etc. The list of species that can be encountered is impressive: black bears, moose, caribou, wapiti, wood bison, musk ox, bighorn sheep, prairie-dogs; and the train also rides past the enclosure for timber wolves (which can only be seen from the train). However, as typical with such attractions, the ride is a disappointment when one is trying to observe and photograph animals. Wolves were lying in the bushes and we’ve only saw a glimpse. From the train we did see a few white-tailed deer, a single caribou, a couple of black bears (which actually were so close to the train that taking a picture was impossible), three moose (who were facing the wrong way, so I also did not take a picture), a herd of bison in the distance, and a couple of prairie-dogs popping out of their burrows. Did not see any musk ox, bighorn sheep, or wapiti. Again, I think the timing of our ride was the main culprit, because I did see several YouTube videos taken on the same ride with people passing herds of caribous, musk ox, etc. But, as with any zoo train ride I’ve taken in the past, what one can see is pretty much determined by luck, and that’s why I always prefer to walk around zoos (or at least drive my own vehicle).
I absolutely loved the pedestrian part of the zoo. There are 6 geographic sections (each having one or more animal exhibits), as well as a small nursery building housing animal orphans, and a petting farm (which we didn’t go to). Two out of six geographic sections and the kids farm are all located on the previously mentioned island. African Mountains section has a rocky exhibit for the bachelor troop of geladas, which is the recent addition (all came from zoos in France and Germany in 2018) and is the only African species currently at the zoo (and very nice species too, considering that only two other zoos in North America house this taxon). This is the 2nd gelada exhibit that I’ve seen so far (the first being the one in Bronx, I haven’t seen the one in San Diego yet as my visits there pre-dated its opening) – it’s not as large as the one in New York and is most rocks with little or no grass, however it’s fairly spacious for the small troop (6 males), and the viewing is superb (and the animals can be viewed from multiple levels and very were visible and active).
Most of the island is taken by the Mixed Forest section, which has 3 open exhibits for medium-sized native mammals and birds, and well as a walk-in aviary for bald eagles, and a small indoor exhibit. This was the first section we went to when we got to the zoo right after it opened. All exhibits are very lush (at least in August) and well furnished, and are viewed from the raised boardwalk. The first one is of a medium size and during my visit housed a single and very active wolverine (though the zoo is supposed to have 2.2 according to ZIMS). I’ve seen wolverines before (in Columbus, Detroit, and Minnesota zoos), but at St Felicien I’ve had my best viewing so far. The next exhibit is much larger and that’s where I had my biggest surprise for the day. On the map this exhibit was marked as an otter exhibit, and I saw three river otters swimming in a pond. Then a raccoon came out, then I saw a red fox in the same exhibit, and to my biggest surprise I also saw two fishers sharing the same space. All together I saw three otters, 4-5 raccoons, a red fox, and two fishers – 4 species of medium-sized carnivores living together in the same exhibit. I’ve read and known about mixed carnivore exhibits, but never heard of an exhibit with 4 species of carnivores living together. In the morning all animals were very active, and we saw lots of interactions, with the fox chasing fishers, and otters harassing raccoons. On the other side of the boardwalk is a second natural exhibit of similar size of larger than the one for otters, etc., with an even bigger pond. That one houses beavers, sandhill cranes, and several North American duck species (we did not see beavers), and has two smaller moated partitions on the other side which house North American porcupines and woodchucks, respectively. The map also mentioned snowshoe hares that are supposed to live in this area – we did not see any, but the beaver exhibit were so spacious and had so much land area with lots of hiding places that they very well could have been there. There is a small pavilion attached to the beavers’ exhibit from where the visitors could view into the beaver den (where we did see two sleeping beavers). The same pavilion had some free-flying birds (I did not take notes but saw some magpies and crows) and two terrariums with rat-snakes and pine-snakes. And, finally and as already mentioned, the same section has a lush walk-in aviary with a couple of bald eagles.
As I mentioned earlier, the river flows right through zoo and dissects it into 3 areas (south bank, the island in the middle of the river, and north bank). The area south of the river is the smallest one and only contains a single section, called Arctic Tundra. This consists of two adjoining exhibits for polar bears which are located at the top of the hill, with viewing boardwalk all around them. Both exhibits are specious and have natural substrate (dirt and grass), and at least one of them has a deep pool with underwater viewing (none of the bears were swimming when I saw the exhibit, so I didn’t pay much attention to the pool). The exhibits are fairly new (opened in 1997 according to zoo’s website) and, while not in the same league as Detroit’s polar bear exhibit, I liked them more than the more recently-opened polar bear exhibits at St Louis or Toronto. There are no rockwork walls and the exhibits appear very open, and so with the exhibits located at the top of the hills, the bears must have a great view of the surrounding areas. Two polar bear cubs were born in late 2018. The map also indicates that Arctic foxes live in the same section – I did not find a separate exhibit for them, and wouldn’t be surprised if they share the space with the bears.
The remaining three sections (as well as the Nature Park Trails train ride) are all located north of the river. The Mongolia section has opened in 2010 (according to Wikipedia). It has some cultural elements (such as a large yurt), a spacious field for Bactrian camels and Przewalski’s horses (and also some waterfowl – Bewick’s swan and bar-headed and swan geese), a paddock for domestic yaks, and a spacious mountain exhibit for Siberian ibex and demoiselle cranes. There is a small viewing gazebo right on top of the ibex mountain with flights of stairs going up there right through the ibex exhibit – the stairs and the gazebo are separated by fairly low fence, which I’m sure ibex could easily jump over. I thought this was a very nice touch that brings visitors very close to the animals (which many US zoos consider as not exciting enough for the public). Overall the whole area is very nicely done and is focusing on a region which very few institutions highlight (I don’t remember seeing any areas dedicated specifically to Mongolia in any other zoo I’ve been to).
Then there is the Asia section, with just four exhibits, which are all viewed from raised boardwalk. Like all other exhibits at this zoo, they are open and very well forested. The species housed are red pandas, Manchurian cranes, Japanese macaques, and Amur tigers.
The last section is called Mountains (North America). It is basically organized as a loop where, again, all exhibits are viewed from the boardwalk. Inside the loop is a large grassy and hilly paddock for a small herd of Rocky Mountain goats (and some trumpeter swans). Along the outer edges of loop are the open exhibits for coyotes, Canadian lynx, grizzly bears, and pumas. Pumas and lynx have plenty of hiding places in their spacious and forested exhibits and are extremely hard to see – fortunately they all come out during the regular feeding sessions. I was surprised to see that the lynx exhibit houses a total of 5 individuals (3.2, per ZIMS) and that the puma exhibit houses 6 animals (3.3). I’ve never seen so many lynx or pumas sharing the same space.
Lastly, there is a small Nursery building right between petting farm and Mongolia. Apparently, it houses orphan animals and others that are hand-reared for whatever reason. On one side of the house are the pens for hoofstock youngsters (during our visit they housed a muskox calf, a whitetail deer fawn, and two wapiti fawns) and on the other side are the cages for smaller animals (I remember a young red fox, two woodchucks, some very tiny striped skunks, a few snowshoe leverets, and a grey squirrel or two).
In the end, I was very impressed by the Saint Felicien Zoo. The grounds are beautiful and very well maintained, while exhibits are natural and perfect for photography. The zoo’s specialization in boreal animals is quite unique, and the collection is strong with some species present in few or no other North American zoos (for example, according to ZIMS no other zoo in North America holds Siberian ibex, while geladas are kept in only 2 other zoos). Finally, I really appreciated the frequent enrichment and feeding schedule that ensures that many otherwise secretive and hard to find animals are easy to see and photograph. Many other zoos, of course, give feeding demonstrations for various throughout the day. However, in my experience, these are often scheduled at random, with different presentations taking place at the same time in different parts of the zoo. At Saint Felicien, it is possible to see most of the animals being fed or enriched by simply following the keepers along the exhibits path, because all feeding sessions are scheduled in the order the animals are encountered along the path. And, if the visitor misses a part of this feeding round, there will be another round scheduled later in the day. So overall I had a great time, took lots of photos, and left the zoo pretty amazed in the fact that such a gem remains so little known even among zoo nerds. Hopefully my lengthy review will help to remedy this, and I also intend to post some of my photos in the gallery in the next few days. This zoo is definitely worth going to if one happens to be in east Canada, even though it's quite far from major cities.
I first read about Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien in the 1994 edition of The Zoo Book: A Guide to America’s Best (by Allen Nyhuis). That book, unlike the latter 2008 edition, had a chapter dedicated to the best foreign zoos, and Canada had 4 facilities briefly described: Calgary, Toronto, Granby, and Saint Felicien. The Saint Felicien Zoo was described in the book as “one of the largest, best, and most natural zoos in Canada”, and after visiting it I can concur that it is one of the most natural zoos that I’ve ever been to (and my current list is at exactly 130 zoos and aquariums, most of them in the US and Israel).
The zoo appears to be little known. When I started planning our Canadian road trip, I was surprised that there are no photos from the zoo at all in the ZooChat gallery. Even google queries for “top 10 zoos in Canada” don’t bring back any results. For example the Top 10 Zoos in Canada website lists obscure little places such as Magnetic Hill Zoo and Cherry Brook Zoo in New Brunswick, but fails to mention Saint Felicien (this is NOT an intent to bad-mouth the 2 New Brunswick’s facilities which I’ve never visited, but simply highlight of how little-known Saint Felicien is). This is probably due to remote location – the zoo is situated in the middle of the Province of Quebec, in the town of Saint Felicien on the shore of Lake Saint Jean, and is far away from Quebec’s major cities (3 hours’ drive from Quebec City and 5 hours’ drive from Montreal). Also, Quebec is a French-speaking province, so most of the information about this zoo is available in French. Fortunately for me, their website is bi-lingual, and includes the historical overview which I will summarize next.
The zoo opened in 1960. At the time it was a regular zoo with lions, elephants, giraffes, and such. In 1970s new land was purchased and the Nature Park Trails section was opened in two phases. The section was dedicated to free-ranging Canadian wildlife which the guests could only view while riding the screened-in train. In the 1990s the zoo phased out all non-native species and decided to focus exclusively on the Canadian fauna (the Native Park Trails section already was focusing on the indigenous species, and the rest of the zoo followed suite). However, in early 2000s the collection plan was altered again to include cold-hardly species from other regions of the world with climate similar to that of Canada, and the zoo now has some species from north and central Asia, and African highlands.
The scenery in the zoo is gorgeous. The place is well forested, and there is a fast river (complete with rapids and small waterfalls) that flows right through the zoo, with about one third of the zoo (not including Nature Park Trails the train ride section) built on an island (called Ile Bernard) in the middle of that river, and connected to the rest of the zoo by three or four bridges. I am not sure how the place would look in the middle of Canadian winter, but in August everything is very scenic. The zoo (except for the Nature Park Trails train ride which I will come to later) is also a photographer’s dream. There are no cages, and all exhibits are very natural and open. Usually such natural exhibits mean that the animals could be tough to find, since there is an abundance of hiding places. However, at Saint Felicien regular feeding and enrichment sessions are scheduled pretty much for all carnivore and primate species several times a day, so even the animals that would normally stay hidden come out several times a day and can be easily observed and photographed.
As explained above, the zoo has a pedestrian section and a train-ride Nature Park Trails section. According to the website, the length of the train tracks is over 7 kilometers (over 4 miles) and the ride takes over an hour (which I now can confirm from experience). I’ll start with the train ride, even though we actually rode the train in the middle of the day. In hindsight this was probably a mistake, because in the middle of the day animals tend to stay hidden in the forests, and during an hour-long ride we saw surprisingly little. However, I wanted to photograph carnivore species in the pedestrian section in the morning knowing that they will be more active, therefore we could only do the ride in the early afternoon. If I could visit the zoo on a second day, I would do the ride first. In any case, the ride is also very scenic and enjoyable, and passes through large sections of evergreen and deciduous forest, open prairies (complete with real prairie-dog town!), and many lakes, as well as replicas of the colonist farm, lumberjack camp, Native American village, etc. The list of species that can be encountered is impressive: black bears, moose, caribou, wapiti, wood bison, musk ox, bighorn sheep, prairie-dogs; and the train also rides past the enclosure for timber wolves (which can only be seen from the train). However, as typical with such attractions, the ride is a disappointment when one is trying to observe and photograph animals. Wolves were lying in the bushes and we’ve only saw a glimpse. From the train we did see a few white-tailed deer, a single caribou, a couple of black bears (which actually were so close to the train that taking a picture was impossible), three moose (who were facing the wrong way, so I also did not take a picture), a herd of bison in the distance, and a couple of prairie-dogs popping out of their burrows. Did not see any musk ox, bighorn sheep, or wapiti. Again, I think the timing of our ride was the main culprit, because I did see several YouTube videos taken on the same ride with people passing herds of caribous, musk ox, etc. But, as with any zoo train ride I’ve taken in the past, what one can see is pretty much determined by luck, and that’s why I always prefer to walk around zoos (or at least drive my own vehicle).
I absolutely loved the pedestrian part of the zoo. There are 6 geographic sections (each having one or more animal exhibits), as well as a small nursery building housing animal orphans, and a petting farm (which we didn’t go to). Two out of six geographic sections and the kids farm are all located on the previously mentioned island. African Mountains section has a rocky exhibit for the bachelor troop of geladas, which is the recent addition (all came from zoos in France and Germany in 2018) and is the only African species currently at the zoo (and very nice species too, considering that only two other zoos in North America house this taxon). This is the 2nd gelada exhibit that I’ve seen so far (the first being the one in Bronx, I haven’t seen the one in San Diego yet as my visits there pre-dated its opening) – it’s not as large as the one in New York and is most rocks with little or no grass, however it’s fairly spacious for the small troop (6 males), and the viewing is superb (and the animals can be viewed from multiple levels and very were visible and active).
Most of the island is taken by the Mixed Forest section, which has 3 open exhibits for medium-sized native mammals and birds, and well as a walk-in aviary for bald eagles, and a small indoor exhibit. This was the first section we went to when we got to the zoo right after it opened. All exhibits are very lush (at least in August) and well furnished, and are viewed from the raised boardwalk. The first one is of a medium size and during my visit housed a single and very active wolverine (though the zoo is supposed to have 2.2 according to ZIMS). I’ve seen wolverines before (in Columbus, Detroit, and Minnesota zoos), but at St Felicien I’ve had my best viewing so far. The next exhibit is much larger and that’s where I had my biggest surprise for the day. On the map this exhibit was marked as an otter exhibit, and I saw three river otters swimming in a pond. Then a raccoon came out, then I saw a red fox in the same exhibit, and to my biggest surprise I also saw two fishers sharing the same space. All together I saw three otters, 4-5 raccoons, a red fox, and two fishers – 4 species of medium-sized carnivores living together in the same exhibit. I’ve read and known about mixed carnivore exhibits, but never heard of an exhibit with 4 species of carnivores living together. In the morning all animals were very active, and we saw lots of interactions, with the fox chasing fishers, and otters harassing raccoons. On the other side of the boardwalk is a second natural exhibit of similar size of larger than the one for otters, etc., with an even bigger pond. That one houses beavers, sandhill cranes, and several North American duck species (we did not see beavers), and has two smaller moated partitions on the other side which house North American porcupines and woodchucks, respectively. The map also mentioned snowshoe hares that are supposed to live in this area – we did not see any, but the beaver exhibit were so spacious and had so much land area with lots of hiding places that they very well could have been there. There is a small pavilion attached to the beavers’ exhibit from where the visitors could view into the beaver den (where we did see two sleeping beavers). The same pavilion had some free-flying birds (I did not take notes but saw some magpies and crows) and two terrariums with rat-snakes and pine-snakes. And, finally and as already mentioned, the same section has a lush walk-in aviary with a couple of bald eagles.
As I mentioned earlier, the river flows right through zoo and dissects it into 3 areas (south bank, the island in the middle of the river, and north bank). The area south of the river is the smallest one and only contains a single section, called Arctic Tundra. This consists of two adjoining exhibits for polar bears which are located at the top of the hill, with viewing boardwalk all around them. Both exhibits are specious and have natural substrate (dirt and grass), and at least one of them has a deep pool with underwater viewing (none of the bears were swimming when I saw the exhibit, so I didn’t pay much attention to the pool). The exhibits are fairly new (opened in 1997 according to zoo’s website) and, while not in the same league as Detroit’s polar bear exhibit, I liked them more than the more recently-opened polar bear exhibits at St Louis or Toronto. There are no rockwork walls and the exhibits appear very open, and so with the exhibits located at the top of the hills, the bears must have a great view of the surrounding areas. Two polar bear cubs were born in late 2018. The map also indicates that Arctic foxes live in the same section – I did not find a separate exhibit for them, and wouldn’t be surprised if they share the space with the bears.
The remaining three sections (as well as the Nature Park Trails train ride) are all located north of the river. The Mongolia section has opened in 2010 (according to Wikipedia). It has some cultural elements (such as a large yurt), a spacious field for Bactrian camels and Przewalski’s horses (and also some waterfowl – Bewick’s swan and bar-headed and swan geese), a paddock for domestic yaks, and a spacious mountain exhibit for Siberian ibex and demoiselle cranes. There is a small viewing gazebo right on top of the ibex mountain with flights of stairs going up there right through the ibex exhibit – the stairs and the gazebo are separated by fairly low fence, which I’m sure ibex could easily jump over. I thought this was a very nice touch that brings visitors very close to the animals (which many US zoos consider as not exciting enough for the public). Overall the whole area is very nicely done and is focusing on a region which very few institutions highlight (I don’t remember seeing any areas dedicated specifically to Mongolia in any other zoo I’ve been to).
Then there is the Asia section, with just four exhibits, which are all viewed from raised boardwalk. Like all other exhibits at this zoo, they are open and very well forested. The species housed are red pandas, Manchurian cranes, Japanese macaques, and Amur tigers.
The last section is called Mountains (North America). It is basically organized as a loop where, again, all exhibits are viewed from the boardwalk. Inside the loop is a large grassy and hilly paddock for a small herd of Rocky Mountain goats (and some trumpeter swans). Along the outer edges of loop are the open exhibits for coyotes, Canadian lynx, grizzly bears, and pumas. Pumas and lynx have plenty of hiding places in their spacious and forested exhibits and are extremely hard to see – fortunately they all come out during the regular feeding sessions. I was surprised to see that the lynx exhibit houses a total of 5 individuals (3.2, per ZIMS) and that the puma exhibit houses 6 animals (3.3). I’ve never seen so many lynx or pumas sharing the same space.
Lastly, there is a small Nursery building right between petting farm and Mongolia. Apparently, it houses orphan animals and others that are hand-reared for whatever reason. On one side of the house are the pens for hoofstock youngsters (during our visit they housed a muskox calf, a whitetail deer fawn, and two wapiti fawns) and on the other side are the cages for smaller animals (I remember a young red fox, two woodchucks, some very tiny striped skunks, a few snowshoe leverets, and a grey squirrel or two).
In the end, I was very impressed by the Saint Felicien Zoo. The grounds are beautiful and very well maintained, while exhibits are natural and perfect for photography. The zoo’s specialization in boreal animals is quite unique, and the collection is strong with some species present in few or no other North American zoos (for example, according to ZIMS no other zoo in North America holds Siberian ibex, while geladas are kept in only 2 other zoos). Finally, I really appreciated the frequent enrichment and feeding schedule that ensures that many otherwise secretive and hard to find animals are easy to see and photograph. Many other zoos, of course, give feeding demonstrations for various throughout the day. However, in my experience, these are often scheduled at random, with different presentations taking place at the same time in different parts of the zoo. At Saint Felicien, it is possible to see most of the animals being fed or enriched by simply following the keepers along the exhibits path, because all feeding sessions are scheduled in the order the animals are encountered along the path. And, if the visitor misses a part of this feeding round, there will be another round scheduled later in the day. So overall I had a great time, took lots of photos, and left the zoo pretty amazed in the fact that such a gem remains so little known even among zoo nerds. Hopefully my lengthy review will help to remedy this, and I also intend to post some of my photos in the gallery in the next few days. This zoo is definitely worth going to if one happens to be in east Canada, even though it's quite far from major cities.
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Thanks very much for your review of Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien and the place sounds amazing. The one-hour train ride is something that very few zoos would ever have, the mixed-species exhibit with 4 carnivores sounds incredible, and the troop of bachelor Geladas (they are from NaturZoo Rheine in Germany) would be pretty cool to see. This Canadian zoo is so far away from any other major zoological collection (literally hours from a big city) and in the French-speaking Province of Quebec (which very few zoo nerds visit), and so it has flown under the radar for years. I'm appreciative of you taking the time to type up such an extensive, informative review and at some point in my life I'd like to visit the place. I'm not sure that will happen, as it is the same cost for me to fly to Europe as it is to go to Quebec, but one never knows!
The website for Zoo Sauvage de Saint Felicien states that there is a grand total of 180,000 annual visitors (a very low number) and yet it takes 5 to 7 hours to tour the zoo in the summer months. So, it's a big place with beautiful exhibits, but with only 90 species and a fairly low visitor number. I wonder how the zoo is funded? Looking at the zoo map, one would never guess that the facility would be an all-day visit, but then again zoo maps are frequently deceiving.
Zoo map - Zoo sauvage de Saint-Félicien
Zoo map - Zoo sauvage de Saint-Félicien
You bring up a very interesting point. When we were driving to Saint Felicien from Montreal, there were long stretches on the highway where we literally saw no cars going in either direction, so the population in the region is rather sparse. However, next day at the zoo there were quite a few people, and especially during the feeding sessions it felt rather crowded. It has gotten so bad, that we started leaving an on-going feeding session before it concluded in order to get good viewing spots on the next one
. Our visit was on Sunday, but still where did all these people come from?Another interesting thing is that the zoo promotes overnight camping experience on their website, which we actually were interested in (especially my kids). However, when I called the zoo to make reservations for August everything was already booked, even though I called in early April!
We didn't explore the lakeside area, and in fact left for Quebec City as soon as we were done with the zoo, but I got an impression that the Lake Saint Jean area (where the town of Saint Felicien is located) sees many campers in summer, at least, and that's probably who most of the visitors are.