San Francisco Zoo » San Francisco Zoo

San Francisco Zoo
06-12-2007

I've had a few emails asking me to talk about some North American zoos that I've visited, and since the Oregon Zoo thread has generated discussion I've decided to also include one on the San Francisco Zoo. It works out well having zoobeat members from all over the world!

This zoo is only average, and not even close to being at the top of my list of 35 zoos, aquariums and wildlife parks that I've been to. It contains about 1,000 animals (organized mainly by geography), including a male Baird's Tapir that should appeal to some people on this website. However, there are a few notable enclosures that deserve to be mentioned. I visited it last summer and was impressed with these newer exhibits.

1- A 3-acre African Savanna exhibit that has giraffes, zebra, kudu, oryx, ostrich, marabou stork, african craned crowns, and a couple of other bird species. This is a top-notch enclosure, as the public walkway splits the exhibit in half and allows for close viewing of the animals. It was just built a few years ago.

2- The Lemur Forest is also a fairly new, excellent enclosure. There are ring-tailed, white-fronted, black and white ruffed, red ruffed, black and recently mouse lemurs all in the same exhibit. They each have separate, smaller enclosures with tiny wire tunnels that are elevated to about head height. The lemurs can run from their own exhibit to the much larger forest that can hold all 6 different species at once. There is a boardwalk that arches around the forest, and this combined with the African Savanna is the best that the zoo has to offer.

3- A brand new enclosure that I haven't seen is "Grizzly Gulch", a 1 acre exhibit that looks fantastic and houses a couple of grizzly bears.

4- Their 5 koalas have a decent little forest to slumber in, and it's always a thrill for North Americans to check out these tiny marsupials.

5- A colony of between 50-60 Magellanic penguins is entertaining, and the exhibit was constructed in the mid-eighties and holds up fairly well.

There are many older exhibits that badly need an influx of cash. The lion house is ancient, the hippo pool is barbaric, the polar bear and spectacled bear grottoes are very typical of old-style zoos, and the elephant exhibit was so bad that in 2005 the zoo decided to not hold them anymore strictly based on the health of the animals. I believe that there are now about 13 zoos in North America alone that have either stopped containing elephants or have announced that they are phasing them out of their collection. This includes prominent zoos such as the Bronx Zoo (phase out), Detroit, Philadelphia, Alaska and San Francisco.

06-12-2007

Some good information there. Coukd you do a similar one about the LA Zoo as a lot of serious developments seem to be going on there...

06-12-2007

CZ Jimmy: I have never been to the Los Angeles Zoo, but the amount of money that has been poured into that place has been staggering. It was well known as a zoo that had been allowed to drag itself down into ruin, and therefore the place remained stagnant for many years. But if you go to the zoo's website there is a lot of information on the 1992 city bond that was passed which allowed for $169 million in zoo improvements.

Since '92 there has been a brand new orangutan exhibit constructed, as well as an animal health center, a children's zoo, an improved entrance and a sea lion pool. Last month the new gorilla enclosure was opened...and there's more new exhibits on the way!

February '08 = Golden Monkeys in the Asian Forest
November '09 = $40 million elephant forest (7 times larger exhibit than before)
May '10 = Reptile and Insect Building
Sept '10 = Rainforest of the Americas

In a few years from now the Los Angeles Zoo might be considered one of the better zoos around...who knows??

06-12-2007

That is impressive! I had heard about the Gorilla and Elephant exhibits and i've seen clips of the Red Ape Rainforest on an LA Zoo based TV show. Golden Monkeys could be an exciting addition as well

06-12-2007

Snow leopard, my wife and I honeymooned in san Francisco in November 2003. The lemur exhibit was new at that stage and they were still building the African savannah. Also the day we were there they were carrying out work on the gorilla's area so we couldn't go up the path to their area.
I didn't mind the place but they did have some old enclosures that I thought were terrible. I didn't not like the mandrill's concrete box or the chimps area. THe first time I visited the USA I went to the Bronx, Cental Park, San Diego and San Diego WAP. I think my expectations may have been to high after going to those zoos. It's like you said, it's not the best but it's O.K.

08-02-2008

I cut and pasted this section from an article that was located online. My review of the zoo that began this thread listed a handful of new, decent exhibits...but at the same time highlighted many of the terrible ones. It will be interesting to see what happens at the San Francisco Zoo, and whether it will be in operation a decade from now.

The zoo claims it has spent over $70 million on "improvements" in the past decade, but most of this funding went to amenities for people like the $14 million entranceway plus more than one million dollars spent to purchase art and refurbish the park's carousel. Meanwhile, the polar bear paces endlessly in the zoo's 1930's-era concrete grotto, and the grey seal (for over 38 years!) swims in a rundown concrete pool of the sort you'd see in a roadside zoo in a developing country. Even the zoo's new exhibits are flawed and not designed with the animals in mind.

The zoo's many animal welfare failures include the deaths of three elephants as a direct result of the inhumane conditions in which they were held for decades, and a string of other unnecessary animal deaths (including two elands, a hippopotamus, two black swans, a dozen penguins, and most famously, Tatiana the tiger who was shot on Christmas Day).

San Francisco Zoo
08-02-2008

Although it is over 20 years since I visited that zoo , I agree with your comments about the urgent need for the zoo to upgrade the animals enclosures
and stop wasting money on humans conveniences .
The zoo was a concrete jungle when I went there - anyone would have thought that the zoo was allergic to grass/earth/vegetation or any other type of natural substrate . I ranked it as the worst city zoo that I had seen at the time

Pleased to hear about the enlarged grizzlies enclosure .

Has Philedelphia Zoo got rid of their elephants , or will that happen by natural attrition ?

10-02-2008

Philadelphia has plans to send their elephants out but I just read the other day that the Director is making sounds about perhaps re-thinking that.

10-02-2008

The battle over the Philly elephants has been ongoing for at least 3-4 years now. Cost factors, as well as the health of the animals, has resulted in the zoo having to decide whether or not to expand/build a massive new exhibit or just stop showcasing elephants. Their Big Cat Falls set of linked exhibits just won Best New Exhibit last year and attendance has been boosted because of it...so perhaps they are thinking of spending big bucks and keeping the pachyderms. Who knows?

My thoughts on the San Francisco Zoo..
21-02-2008

I visited the Sf Zoo in 2005, so I might be a little outdated.

I loved the design of the African Savannah, when I visited they had seperated the zebras to the enclosure on the other side of the walkway, this is due to the fact that zebras have a nasty streak and often kill newborns within their territory and one of their kudus were about to give birth.

The Lemur exhibit was stunning, I could have sat there and watched them all day. While not the most natural looking exhibit, it was fascinating to watch the lemurs climb trees and behave as they would in the wild.

The Primate Discovery Center was horrible. They housed many species of primates in tiny cages, and although there were obvious enrichment programs at work (the lion tailed macaques had toys to play with and food items they had to work to reach) these enclosures were ugly and unattractive and substandard.

The polar bears were pacing and looked horribly bored, and the tiger was at the very bottom of the moat that fronts their enclosure, playing with a large red ball.

The enclosures for the tapir and the grey seal were both inadequate an din need of an overhaul. I think this zoo has potential but it definitely needs a lot of work in order to bring it up to the standard of zoos such as the Bronx Zoo and taronga Zoo.

21-02-2008

Well we can assume there will be real changes there in the next few years. The tiger killing has put a lot of pressure on them and since the city owns the land and buildings, the need to change is bigger than the zoo! Of course, few zoos that I know aspire to be Bronx or Taronga, but there are many wonderful smaller simpler facilities.

They just convened an external committee to review the whole zoo. Pat Thomas (Bronx Zoo curator), Rick Borongi (Houston Zoo director), Keith Larson (architect/principal of Jones & Jones) were among the group. I think their report is due in a few weeks.

I hope the result is not a two year Master Planning process followed by five years of fund raising topped off by three years of design and construction of the first improvement. But my sense is that they must show some real change as quickly as they can. Whether the zoo's director and head of animal care survive it all is another matter.

21-02-2008

It was just really sad that a zoo located in the most visited city in the US can be so behind with the times.

It was very sad to see their primates in their tiny cages, and also even the enclosure for their anacondas in the Amazon Gallery was not up to standard.

Speaking of the Bronx Zoo, I noticed some of the smaller primates pacing incessantly in one of the nocturnal house exhibits and also in the monkey house. I went there in the winter time so I only got to see mainly the indoor enclosures and the polar bears, Tiger Mountain, Himalaya Highland and the bisons. Have you observed animals packing there too?

21-02-2008

@aw101: good review of the San Francisco Zoo, and you and I agree on the better qualities of the zoo such as the lemur forest and african savannah. As you can see from my review, I thought that the majority of the enclosures were of extemely poor quality. The hippo "pit" was an abomination.

21-02-2008

Snowleopard, I hear they have let the big cats back outside now, which can only be better for them, is it true they have outdoor access again?

21-02-2008

@CZ Jimmy: yes, the 4 lions and 4 tigers (3 sumatran and 1 siberian) are all back outdoors. It's about bloody time, as the big cats spent almost two full months locked inside their tiny night quarters.