New World Tropics Building - White-Faced Saki Monkey Exhibit

July 18th, 2012. This rainforest complex opened in 1992, the exact same year that arguably the two biggest and best rainforest complexes opened in American zoos (Omaha and Cleveland). Beardsley has a very small structure, but it sticks to its South American theme and what it does it accomplishes very well and thus I really enjoyed the experience. A boa constrictor exhibit is first seen and it is tall and allows the snake to gain height; a beautiful yacare caiman pool (which also contains mata mata turtles) is lushly planted; and then a short walk-through area has two netted habitats and one open-topped one. Keel-billed toucans, scarlet ibises, white-bellied caiques, Orinoco geese, ringed-teal ducks and red-footed tortoises have the option of venturing outwards (except for perhaps the tortoises) and golden lion tamarins are on one side and Goeldi’s monkeys, white-lined tanagers and two-toed sloths have the other netted exhibit.

Departing that area one arrives at the final room, and two large glass-fronted exhibits dominate the landscape. An ocelot has a good exhibit that is all indoors but has a massive tree with many branches off in all directions plus a genuine dirt floor and other natural substrates in the habitat. White-faced saki monkeys do not fare as well as their enclosure is mainly all fake with a cement floor, and they appear to rotate with the black howler monkeys (I saw them in an outdoor black metal cage). Other exhibits include a vampire bat, an emerald tree boa, Amazon milk frog and pygmy marmoset. There are basically only 11 exhibits in this rainforest building, but most of them are very nicely designed and now that 20 years has passed I’m pleased to announce that the area holds up quite well and there aren’t even any darn ring-tailed lemurs bouncing around to mess up the geographic theme.

The sakis and howlers do not rotate. Instead, the monkeys share this exhibit from autumn to spring, but during the summer, the howlers have outdoor access.