Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden Review of Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is oddly named since the feature gardens are mostly small and unmemorable and do not make an impression upon most visitors beyond most other zoo facilities. The zoo is located in an area of rolling hills a few miles North of downtown and is well served by a bus route which links many of the local attractions and ends at the main entrance here. It is true that there is a great collection of rarely exhibited animals in mostly average and substandard enclosures, but the roomy and very pleasant grounds and extensive amount of exhibits help make up for this fact, and there are still very few depressing exhibits. The layout is probably the most haphazard one I can remember, although a basic loop path could be followed. Unrelated groups of habitats adjoin each other, and plenty of individual exhibits are marooned away from their geographic or zoological cousins. This is certainly a facility full of notable buildings, both good and bad. I won't attempt a blow by blow description as the exhibits are encountered, instead I will group types of exhibits together.

I'll describe visitor buildings first. The new entrance is a nice vaguely colonial tropical complex of buildings and landscape. An entrance building with escalator and elevator fronted by a plaza with a rhino sculpture is located in a new parking lot across the street. Once on the second level, a bridge crosses the street to the ticketing building and turnstile shelter, which leads to a rentals and restroom building, and a gift shop building whose interior is still being finished. The Natural Selections Cafe is a small outdoor cafe on another plaza. The complex is called Historic Vine Street Village. Oddly, it features a WiFi hotspot so one can Zoochat when one gets bored with the extensive zoo's offerings! This entry area creates a good tone compared to the organizational chaos to come. Another complex which I suspect was an older 1970s entrance is on the other side of the zoo, and leads to another parking lot and the Cheetah Encounter across it (which was closed that day). The complex has a gift shop building, cafe, offices, and botanical shadehouse area with matching ordinary woodsy buildings. More striking is a nearby curved wood beamed building with a swooping roofline that is the Family Zooshop, part of the small cramped Children's Zoo. Yet another area of the zoo is the Safari Camp, composed of better themed education buildings and event shelters on a sloping site adjoining other buildings for Safari Grill, 4-D Special FX Theater, and a carousel. The African theme is nice here, but the use of crossed spears above every sign and entry is overdone. Discovery Forest, which is a round glazed atrium that is part of an education center and only features a few exhibits in its two story space, including a toad, macaw, and sloth, is in another corner of the property and looks like a great facility with classrooms. It is not the inspiring indoor rainforest it appears to be from the outside, however.

Exhibits that are mostly in buildings is the next category, again they are scattered. Oldest is the small round turreted Reptile House, with a sadly small center alligator exhibit and a small collection of small wall herpetariums. This is the oldest zoo building in the country and should either be turned into an interpretive non-animal exhibit or bathrooms! Another old historic building is the exotically arched elephant house, with minarets punctuating its roofline. The interior was closed that day, but the two outdoor yards were open, one of which is naturalistic and larger with an amphitheater around a swimming pool and the other a small fenced yard. Four low buildings that appear to be plain 1970s structures that disappear into the trees and landscape include Nocturnal House, Wings of the World, World of the Insect, and Cat House. Nocturnal House is a small one room cavelike collection of about 6 dark exhibits, the largest of which features aardvarks, and is substandard. Wings of the World, which is adjoined by a decent outdoor lorikeet feeding aviary, is a themed collection of pleasant small to midsized aviaries, two of which are skylit tropical walkthroughs and three of which are underwater glazed views of Arctic and Antartic diving birds including penguins. World of the Insect is one of this zoos shining gems and certainly the best insect display I have seen. A winding exhibit path through abstract displays with excellent clear graphics show a wide impressive collection of insects as well as some related creatures, even a small naked mole rat colony which is interpreted as behaviorally related to some insects. Most impressive is a leaf cutter ant colony that travels continously between its home display and the leaf source display through hundreds of feet of clear acrylic tubes on opposite sides of the exhibit rooms. A nice skylit naturalistic walkthrough butterfly exhibit is also featured, and together the wow factor for this complex is great. An insect fan would find this building worth the price of zoo admission alone. The same could be said for feline fans in Cat House, if one could get past the size and confinement of most of the exhibits. A round room is entered first, with multiple exhibits around its circumference, and then a curved path is followed through additional similar exhibits. Although the interiors are well themed and backdrops painted, the habitats are far too small and most lack outdoor access. Those that do have outdoor access have small rocky outcrops with ugly cages. Getting past this, the extensive rare collection and level of activity in such a concentrated space in the morning was electric, and I was inside alone! Displays with active animals that morning were caracal, fishing cat, fossa (non-cat), bat eared fox (non-cat), margay, sand cat, ocelot, serval, coati (non-cat), and snow leopard. There are some other exhibits too, so where else in the zoo world can the small carnivore fan see this? Manatee Springs is a more recent building (1990s?) that features several themed skylit alligator swamp habitats upon entering, and then leads to a darkly lit series of rooms with a decent manatee tank and several smaller florida fish tanks and education displays, not as successful as Columbus Zoos Manatee Coast in the same region.

Large animal outdoor exhibits are also scattered haphazardly, and most are average rocky walled yards and grottoes for a fairly extensive collection including Przewalskis horses, emus, takins, gorillas, lemurs, tigers, cheetahs, red pandas, Indian and black rhinos, bongos, zebras, okapis, black and spectacled and polar bears. A few of note include several rocky yards shaded by large columned awnings for the very rare Sumatran rhinos, a poorly detailed white lion fenced exhibit with an ugly wood platform stuck in the middle for lounging, and an even more unattractive plain fenced flat giraffe exhibit next to the back parking lot.

The last category of exhibits features only two that could be described as multispecies immersive exhibit complexes, one small and one large. The small one is Wolf Woods, which features a nicely themed woodsy complex of an education cabin, a viewing cabin for a well sized sloped Mexican wolf exhibit, a small thick billed parrot aviary, a walkthrough turkey and bird aviary, a river otter exhibit with viewing from three points including an underwater window, and a tiny open air skunk habitat. A decent rocky sealion pool and shore with underwater viewing adjoins these North American exhibits as does the small barnyard themed Childrens Zoo, so I'm not sure if the complex is considered part of the kids area or not but it is certainly reached through it. The larger immersive exhibit is a winner, called Jungle Trails, and features animals from both Asia and Africa. The Asian section is explored first, and the tone is set by exotic tree stumps and a rustic bridge as the trail descends down a wooded slope. This trail is compacted earth, not paved, and really sets this complex apart from the rest of the zoo as a wilder experience. An open small island is reached first, which currently has Diana monkeys (so much for the Asian first theme!), then an aviary with storks which is typical of the smaller outdoor exhibits with timber and wire enclosures. Then a large outdoor enclosure is reached with several viewpoints into a grassy and hilly orangutan and gibbon exhibit which is very nice. A low entrance to a dark indoor exhibit building for Asian animals is then encountered, filled with several small nocturnal exhibits as well as several primate exhibits including the bedroom area for the orangutans. A themed temple exhibit behind glass for lion tailed macaques represents much of the exotic detailing of the interior habitats, which extends into the visitor walkways in the dim environment. After exiting, the African section begins with a nice pond exhibit for painted storks and pelicans, followed by several primate enclosures including colobus. Then the large outdoor bonobo exhibit is viewed, similar to the orangutan. Also similar is the African animal building, with darkened themed visitor walks and bonobo bedroom and glazed primate exhibits as well as a tortoise and aviary exhibit in the jungle setting. This is an excellent immersive complex.

General adult admission is 13 dollars and is right on the money. Of the 45 zoos I have attended, I rank it at number 17 just below Denver Zoo and just above National Zoo in Washington DC. The only exhibit complex here to make my top 50 is Jungle Trails at number 22, just below Bronxs African Plains section and just above San Diegos Polar Bear Plunge. None of the individual exhibits makes my top lists however. I should note that if I had a seperate list for insect exhibits, World of the Insect would probably top it in every category except for butterfly exhibits, it really is superb. I have posted pictures in the gallery.

 

Nice review! Cincinnati Zoo = amazing animal collection, but many subpar exhibits. Jungle Trails and Insect World are basically the two premier exhibit complexes, while the reptile house, cat house, nocturnal house, gorilla enclosure and bear pits should all have been demolished or renovated years ago.

 

Yes, Cat House has exhibits too small and is set to be completely redone "soon" (when that is, who knows?). As I understand it, the nearby tiger canyon (or whatever it is called) will be redone at the same time to create a combined new cat canyon exhibit that should make cat fans like me drool.

The Cat House collection is good, but not as impressive as it used to be. In addition to species Geomorph listed, when I was there last (2001) they also had jaguarundi, geoffroy cat, asian golden cat, black pampas cat, eurasian lynx, pallas cat and more!

They are building a new small cat breeding center on farmland they own in a rural area. This is when they will redo the Cat House. Hopefully, they may be able to build up the collection again. On another thread, someone mentioned they overheard staff talk about an oncilla exhibit in conjuction with this redo, which is a species not currently housed in the U.S.

 

joining thread

 

The Botanical Gardens part is the entire grounds rather than any specialty gardens. Areas such as the Red Panda exhibit double as the Chinese plant landscape. When I was there, the plant collection included over 3000 species and cultivars.

The lay-out is, of course, derived from 134 years of development. The original lay-out was somewhat taxonomic, but used the hilly terrain for best advantage of the animals (for example, northern bear species set before North facing hills to keep them cool).

And if I can add to your fine review, JungleTrails won the AZA Exhibit Award some years ago

 

Agreed, minus the nocturnal house and gorilla exhibit. While neither is amazing, they're more than acceptable while the others are entirely unacceptable. Though, I still don't have too much an issue with the cat house (though the whole building is a mess right now of renovation and there are numerous non-cat animals there...).

 

A recent lecture from a breeding expert involved with CREW at Cincinnati Zoo stated that they are making headway on starting to build the breeding center. I am dying of excitement.

 

I am very excited about the breeding center too. PLEASE keep us posted with any developments you hear of. This includes which species will be kept there (even though it's not open to public, the offspring may make their way back to Cincinnati for public viewing).

They are already doing renovation on the zoo cat house? PLEASE keep us posted on that also!

 

This is my home zoo and a place that has had some amazingly rare species over the years. As kid I was spoiled to see pandas, golden monkeys, komodos, Sumatran rhinos, Doucs, probocis, okapis and many, many more over 30 years. Their space limits what they can do exhibit-wise, but they know what they are doing. I agree with Snowleopard about the bear pits. That's some depressing exhibitry right there. Otherwise, I think good things are on the horizon in Cincy. It's easy to bash them, but many zoos would give their eye teeth to have accomplished what Cincinnati has with Sumatran rhinos. It really doesn't get much bigger than that IMHO.

 

Out of curiosity when did Cincy have pandas?

 

Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden - www.giantpandazoo.com

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Chia Chia only liked to be in the outdoor enclosure in the early morning. My suspicion is that the trees were not big enough to provide cover. Before the visitors arrived, he'd be back inside. The day of the big press opening, he wouldn't come out. Everyone stood and waited, but no show. You could certainly see him indoors, but everyone wanted to see him outside.

The specially built exhibit was near the World of Insects. It was later used for Golden Monkeys and a koala.

 

chia chia came on tour when he was going for london zoo to mexico city zoo

 

zooplantman, is the former panda exhibit used for or a part of any exhibits now?

 

I haven't been there in years, but looking at the present map, we're talking about the area now called "Lemur Lookout."

 

Ok, I saw the lemur exhibit and it was a nice but small open-air island exhibit with a raised walkway and occasional glass railings surrounding one side of it.

 

Then I would conclude that the old area for the Giant Panda was razed and re-built for the lemurs.

 

You guys are close, but not quite on target. The Lemur Island used to be an Ibex/Gelada exhibit. The panda was in what used to be a special exhibit building. It's the one offset from the Nocturnal House. It has a den on the left side with a round viewing window and an outdoor yard past the right exit to the building. There's a ramp walkway in the building. Over the years it housed a panda, golden monkeys, a wombat and koala and was a semi-permanent Komodo house for most of it's existance. When the last Cincy Komodo died it became an exhibit for South American animals. When I was last there it housed a giant anteater, screamers and marmosets. The outdoor yard housed Siberian cranes.

 

YES! Thank-you, @groundskeeper 24, that's exactly what I was trying to recall (I was at the zoo during all of those times except for the South American animals!)

 

I think that exhibit area was closed when I was there.

 

The exhibit has been closed for months. Right before summer, there was a sign stating the anteater was visiting another zoo for the summer and the last few months the whole exhibit has been closed with a sign promising exciting new animals coming in the future. I just wish that giant bubble was in use =/.