Day Eight
Today was a really long day. I woke at 5am, after four hours sleep, and caught a taxi to central Portland, from where I caught a bus to Seattle. It was a fairly interesting trip, lots of views of farmland and hamlets. Not much in the way of wildlife though. I arrived in a rather dreary part of town, which was dead at 9.30am on a Saturday. This would explain all the shuffling zombies who followed me like I was the last living soul I suppose. Eventually I managed to find a hotel, and a taxi to my airbnb accommodation. After checking in, and trying to wake up a bit more, I walked five minutes to the Woodland Park Zoo.
Woodland Park Zoo is located in a suburb north of the city centre, in a large park. This zoo is renowned for its immersion exhibits, and I was very excited to explore such a progressive and modern zoo. Cost was moderate - $19, and included a token that visitors could put into a container for one of several conservation initiatives the zoo is involved in. The more tokens put towards an initiative, the more money the zoo will donate to it. This was a brilliant way to get people aware of and involved in conservation; every single visitor I saw put their token in, and many spent a few minutes choosing. I hope more zoos do this, I think it’s extremely effective, fairly cheap, and gets visitors in a conservation-type frame of mind as soon as they enter the zoo. Except me, I wanted the token as a souvenir...
The first exhibit encountered is the African Savannah. Opening in 1980, this is a key immersive exhibit at the zoo, and the main exhibit is home to a mix of Reticulated Giraffe, Zebra, Fringe-eared Oryx, Grant’s Gazelle, Ostrich and Spur-winged Goose. And while it is a nice, lush and green enclosure, it’s not particularly African. It’s basically a meadow with beautiful deciduous trees that looks like it should be home to some deer and rabbits. The surrounding exhibits, a walkthrough aviary for various African birds, Hippopotamus, Patas Monkeys, Lions and Warthog are all adequate, but the complete lack of a real African landscape means this important exhibit hasn’t aged well and is rather uninspiring. The single worst thing about this exhibit was the Giraffes – these were corralled in a very small pen in a corner of the exhibit, housed behind tall mesh fences, to be fed by a long queue of paying visitors. They seemed to be there all day, literally cash cows, and were basically off-display for anyone who didn’t want to wait half an hour to feed them.
The next two immersive exhibits are rather newer, dating from the 1990s, and displaying a range of Asian wildlife. These work much better in terms of immersion, because the vegetation is much more jungle-y, overall much more impressive. The first area, Elephant Forest, holds (unsurprisingly) a small group of Asian Elephants – in a rather long, narrow enclosure. The advantages of this for the animals are obvious, it can’t all be seen at once, and has lots of different areas. It’s not particularly large, and an expansion would be an improvement. I know pigs are destructive, but surely someone can come up with a better way of displaying them than dustbowls with dead wood and rocks. Woodland Park’s Visayan Warty Pigs (and Warthogs) are in exhibits that are among the very best I’ve seen, but both are missing something to endear these creatures.
The second area, Trail of Vines, features the most active Malayan Tapir I’ve ever seen – which meant this beautiful creature got a lot more attention than they usually receive. Possibly this was because the animal was in a very shaded exhibit, with much overhanging and ground vegetation, rather than a barren, exposed pen. The Orangs (species?) and Siamangs were inside, in rather cramped quarters, but their outdoor enclosure was much more impressive, many tall trees and options for movement, it would have been great to see them out there utilising it, especially with the tree-top views from the boardwalk. The other species here, Lion-tailed Macaque and Indian Python, rounded out the area nicely, although some birds would be a nice addition.
Around the corner a bird show was underway, with a Turkey Vulture that flew off to investigate the nearby Meerkats and had to be re-captured, and a Spectacled Owl, which was much better behaved. Opposite was the Adaptations house, a collection of mismatched small mammals – Meerkats, Two-toed Sloth, Tamandua, Northern Tree-Shrew and Indian Flying-fox, with a large indoor Komodo Dagon enclosure at the far end. Seems like a hang-over from earlier times, hopefully the species can be retained in future, more appropriate, exhibits. A homely paddock for Lowland Anoa was nearby, in a quiet corner which was a nice change from the crowds.
Northern Trail, the North American immersive exhibit is another brilliant exhibit – it’s amazing how well native animals can be displayed when effort is put in, they certainly don’t have to be the “boring” animals that so many zoos act like they are. Grey Wolves, Wapiti, Porcupines, Grizzlies, River Otters, Arctic Fox, Owls and Steller’s Sea Eagle made a great and cohesive exhibit that really showcased the local fauna and flora. Not everything is perfect, looking down on Arctic Fox doesn’t really work for example, and again there could be more supporting species (birds and herps). The worst thing is that the trail is a dead-end, which really screws any flow through the exhibit area. And the dumb thing is it looks like it could be a loop, it just hasn’t been connected up.
The Australian section is token, basic and disappointing – nothing worth mentioning here. Except Kea, great to see New Zealand species anywhere! The adjacent Snow Leopard cage is much nicer, and marks a return to the Asian animal exhibits. Nearby are old enclosures for Sloth Bears, new exhibits for this species are under construction, as well as for Malayan Tigers, hopefully this will all be connecting up to the Trail of Vines in the future. The first part of this new section, featuring Asian Small-clawed Otter and an aviary with large, hardy Asian birds is already open, and looks like a good start.
The last area of the zoo has a very dense collection of exhibits, which I’ll mention only briefly. The first was a reptile house, with an impressive collection; some housed well, some in too small tanks. Also here were Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos. Nearby was a new exhibit for Humboldt Penguins, which was very impressive and certainly one of the bet outdoor penguin exhibits I’ve seen. This was really the start of the South American section, with the next exhibit being the much lauded Jaguar enclosure. This lead into the Rainforest House, which was populated with a very solid collection of South American birds, a handful of herps, Ocelot and Golden Lion Tamarin. Back outside were exhibits for African primates – Red-Ruffed Lemurs, Black-and-White Colobus and Gorillas. These were all stunning, but personally I’d like them to be re-purposed for South American primates, allowing new exhibits for the current species, including the gorillas, who currently inhabit the world’s first immersion exhibit, which has held up well given it was built in the late 1970s.
The final section, Temperate Forests, begins with a couple of exhibits for various waterbirds, followed by Cheetah, Pudu, Red Panda and a nice collection of Cranes. This is followed by a huge walkthrough aviary for waterfowl, with a great range of species. I spent ages trying to find everything! This was followed by another walkthrough aviary, with large aviaries lining one side and housing an impressive collection of hornbills, pheasants, and other birds – including many Laughing-thrushes few of which I could see. The Zoo’s final exhibit is the children’s zoo, featuring a farmyard, playgrounds, an insect house, and the last wild animal exhibit – Great Grey Owl.
I did like Woodland Park Zoo very much, but it didn’t wow as much as I thought it would. The exhibit quality was very high overall, but there are some exhibits that definitely require attention. The exhibit design is much more reminiscent of Australasian zoos than European ones, much more so than Oregon Zoo, and there are obvious reasons for this. While the zoo wasn’t quite as cohesive as I would have hoped, there was a very diverse and solid collection. All up I saw 162 species, of which 30, or 18.5%, were new (or new subspecies). The majority of these were reptiles and birds, with just two new mammals seen – although these were both beautiful hoofstock species. The best new species were the Tentacle Snake and Hooded Crane.
New Species:
Hourglass Tree Frog, Giant Leaf Frog, Solomon Islands’ Leaf Frog, Smooth-sided Toad, Colorado River Toad, Grey-banded Kingsnake, Blair’s Kingsnake, Desert Rosy Boa, Southern Copperhead, Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake, Burmese Vine Snake, Tentacle Snake, Pan’s Box Turtle, Large Eyed Pit Viper, Tiger Rat Snake, Lesser Scaup, Black Spur-winged Goose, Hooded Crane, Spur-winged Lapwing, Barred Owl, Black-billed Magpie, Crested Oropendola, Yellow-rumped Cacique, Paradise Tanager, Bananaquit, Red-crested Finch, White-tailed Trogon, Knobbed Hornbill, Fringe-eared Oryx and Grant’s Gazelle.
