Bonnie and I are starting to throw around ideas around for our fall zoo trip and have come up with a possible plan.We are thinking about the first week of october. Day 1 Milwaukee Zoo Day 2 Blank Zoo Des Moines Iowa Day 3 Kansas City Zoo Day 4 Henry Doorly Zoo Day 5 Mt Rushmore (non zoo) Day 6 Driving Day Day 7 Minnesota Zoo Day 8 Shedd Aquarium Milwaukee and Shedd we visit often but the others are all first time zoos for us we would appreciate any thoughts,ideas and tips. Team Tapir
About the Milwaukee County Zoo, here are a few new things I'd recommend: The new outdoor bonobo exhibit - it is a hideous cage trail raised above the ground, but the bonobos seemed to be content when I saw it a few days ago. Apparently these apes like it better off the ground and somewhat in the trees. It's an overall average addition to the zoo, but since it's October that you'll be visiting, you might get lucky in seeing them outside because the apes don't go out if it's less than 60 degrees. There were quite a few animal babies on display as well. Cottontop tamarin twins, a kangaroo joey, a baby alpaca, two bonobo babies, and Mahal the orangutan orphan are just some of the highlights. The lion cubs should hopefully be on display, too. Hope this helps.
The concept of this Bonobo exhibit seems unique at least we'll have to see it before really making an opinion Team Tapir
I am pretty familiar with Kansas City, so feel free to ask me any questions. I would suggest getting there right when it opens (you may already do this), as the parking lot fills up quickly. I would also suggest heading straight to Africa, as it is much more enjoyable in the morning without people. I can't think of anything else at the moment, but feel free to bother me with any questions about Kansas City, Omaha, or even Mt Rushmore (I go there every few years). EDIT: Milwaukee Man reminded me, we have a baby black rhinoceros, to baby Masai giraffes, a young chimpanzee, a young Guinea baboon, black-footed cat kittens, a young collared mangabey, and several young scimitar-horned oryxes, two young California sea lions, tons of red kangaroo joeys, a baby orangutan, and a young blue monkey, if you are interested in "babies."
The only one on the list I have been to is Minnesota, but it is outstanding and definitely worth a full day if you can keep it in your itinerary. Of course there is also another zoo in neighboring St Paul (Como Zoo I think), which I have not been to, but appears to be not nearly as nice.
Shedd Aquarium is my #1 aquarium, Omaha is my #3 zoo, Minnesota is excellent, Kansas City has a brilliant African zone that is huge, there are at least 50 American zoos better than Milwaukee County, and I have not visited Blank Park Zoo but plan to on next summer's road trip. Mount Rushmore is great but can be done in about an hour or so if you do not plan to trek to a closer viewing platform.
In doing research looking for hotels between Omaha and Mount Rushmore, I came across Souix City and a hotel there. Amazingly it is 2 miles from the Great Plains Zoo. Anyone know anything about it I went on their website and they don't even have a zoo map. They are AZA accredited and have 45 acres, but that's about it. Their list of animals is pretty small so I'm thinking it wont take long to go through. Any opinions are helpful. Thanks, Bonnie-team tapir
I've never been, but they have a breeding group of black rhinos in a new exhibit. I would think that might be incentive enough for tapir fans to visit!
Well we had to make a couple changes to our fall zoo trip and here it is.We are going to St. Louis which is going to be my second visit but Bonnies first.From there we are going to make first time visits to Kansas City and Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.Then hit up one of regular spots (Chicago) for a couple days. Team Tapir
My first visit to the St Louis Zoo was back in 2003 and because my brother wanted to see the Budweiser Brewery and get to the Cardinals game by batting practice we only spent a couple hours there.Saturday I was really able to appriciate how wonderful this zoo really is.It was Bonnie's first visit and she too was very impressed. Rivers Edge is truly top notch as we made sure to vist this area first before saturday crowds took over which turned out to be a very good idea. The insect house,reptile house,penguin exhibit and great apes are all very solid.Turning a portion of the old bear grottos into a penguin exhibit we found to be very innovative.Bonnie absolutely loves penguins and found St Louis to be her favorite of the zoos she has visited. The only really poor exhibits would probably be the remaining bear grottos and alot of the hoofstock paddocks. The zoos new exhibit Sea Lion Sound is coming along nicely with work being done 7 days a week.The exhibit is scheduled to open next summer. Team Tapir
Today we visited the Kansas City Zoo and met up with KCzoofan.It is always nice to talk zoos with a fellow zoo chatter.Thanks again to KCzoofan for adding so much to our vist. The African area is as good as advertised a tremendous zone which no doubt can stand up to others of its kind.The chimp exhibit we found to be particually outstanding easily the best in North America this heavily forested yard provides its residents with opportunity to be as close to wild chimps as you could possibly be. Polar Bear Passage was very nice with avery active bear.Its Australian area was kinda unique as many are alike in North American zoos.So as long as this zoo sticks to its masterplan its in very good shape.Penguins are next on its agenda with tigers and orangs to follow.On to Omaha monday. Team Tapir
After quite an adventure getting to the zoo due to I-29 being closed due to flooding near the Missouri/Iowa border,it was well worth our efforts.The Henry Doorley Zoo is a true gem of the Midwest.Just when we thought that no zoo exhibit could ever top seeing Congo Gorilla Forest it seems Lied Jungle might have done it.Lied Jungle seemingly makes you feel as though you are trekking for miles through a tropical rainforest,surrounding you with multitudes of different animal species throughout the world.Some highlights of this exhibit for us include a bat landing on bonnie head while on the forest floor,two Spider Monkeys trying to get a piggy back ride from a Bairds Tapir and underwater viewing of some very active Pygmy Hippos. Henry Doorley Zoo is no doubt one of the best zoos in North America however just like any zoo it has its flaws as most on here no there cat and bear complexes are very poor.We cannot believe that Big Cat exhibit opened in 1977 it could easily pass as having opened in 1957.The only real decent exhibit with cats and bears would probably be The Sun Bear grotto wear big trees have been put in and they wear very active bears. Omaha moved its remaining elephant Shenga to our home zoo of Cleveland and has turned its elephant yard on Pachyderm Hill into a Indian Rhino exhibit.However the zoo has made their commitment clear to bring back elephants as part of new savannah area.This is next up after a already underway new front entrance.It is our opinion that the zoo should have elephants on the back burner and should focus on perhaps a carnivore complex giving new exhibits to its Big Cats and Bears. I forgot to mention that Desert Dome was also an incredible exhibit and that we were unable to visit the Scott Aquarium as its closed for renovations til April.Gorillas and Orangs also had very good exhibits.All in all the Henry Doorley Zoo is well worth a visit to Nebraska. On to Chicago. Team Tapir
Back in Cleveland after stops at Brookfield and Toledo to wrap up our trip Next up our Pacific Coast Zoo trip for our honeymoon next summer Team Tapir
I enjoyed reading you thoughts on these zoos. I hope to see some new rankings of the three/two new zoos you visited, though I got a hint of some of your opinions on Sunday Pacific coast trip? Do you plan to see as many zoos as snowleopard did this summer?
Snowleopard's trip gave us the idea but there is no way to do that many.We are going to be working with two and half to three weeks off.We are going to fly into Seattle,rent a car for the trip and fly back from San Diegne problem is going to be getting good deal on a rental car when we are not returing in the same location.Off the top of my head I think we'll look to hit these zoos Woodland Park (Seattle) Point Defiance (Tacoma) Oregon Zoo (Portland) Sacramento Zoo San Fransico Zoo Oakland Zoo Monerey Bay Aquarium Fresno Zoo La Zoo SD Zoo SDWP SEAWORLD SD Marty of Team Tapir
