Texas: Zoo List

I have compiled a list of zoos within the vast, sprawling state of Texas because if I'm fortunate enough to head south on yet another summer road trip (in 2016, 2017 or 2018) then I'd likely drive towards Texas as there are so many zoos to tour. The list below does not include several private facilities that aren’t open to the public, as well as a handful of nature centers that are not true zoological establishments. What zoos am I missing?

48 Texas Zoos:

Dallas-Fort Worth Area (14):
Frank Buck Zoo (Gainesville)
Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary (McKinney)
International Exotic Animal Sanctuary (Boyd)
Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch (Pilot Point)
In Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center (Wylie)
C.A.R.E. (Center for Animal Research & Education) (Bridgeport)
East Texas Gators & Wildlife Park (Grand Saline)
Sea Life Grapevine (Grapevine)
Fort Worth Zoo (Fort Worth)*
Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (Glen Rose)*
Dallas Zoo (Dallas)*
Dallas World Aquarium (Dallas)*
Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park (Dallas)
Texas Discovery Gardens: Butterfly House & Insectarium (Dallas)

Central-East Texas (7):
Caldwell Zoo (Tyler)*
Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge (Tyler)
Cherokee Trace Drive-Thru Safari (Jacksonville)
Cameron Park Zoo (Waco)*
Topsey Exotic Ranch & Drive-Thru Safari (Coryell County)
Ellen Trout Zoo (Lufkin)*
Franklin Drive-Thru Safari (Franklin)

Austin Area (4):
Exotic Resort Zoo (Johnson City)
Austin Zoo & Animal Sanctuary (Austin)
Capital of Texas Zoo (Austin)
Austin Aquarium (Austin)

Houston Area (11):
Downtown Aquarium Houston (Houston)*
Houston Zoo (Houston)*
Houston Museum of Natural Science (Houston)
Bear Creek Pioneers Park & Zoo (Houston)
Gator Country (Beaumont)
TGR Exotics Wildlife Park (Spring)
Saint Francis Wolf Sanctuary (Montgomery)
Crocodile Encounter (Angleton)
Bayou Wildlife Park (Alvin)
Moody Gardens (Galveston)*
Aquarium Restaurant (Kemah)

San Antonio Area (4):
Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo (New Braunfels)
San Antonio Zoo (San Antonio)*
SeaWorld San Antonio (San Antonio)*
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch (San Antonio)

South of San Antonio (4):
The Texas Zoo (Victoria)
Texas State Aquarium (Corpus Christi)*
Gladys Porter Zoo (Brownsville)*
National Butterfly Center (Mission)

North Texas (1):
Amarillo Zoo (Amarillo)

West Texas (3):
El Paso Zoo (El Paso)*
Abilene Zoo (Abilene)*
San Angelo Nature Center (San Angelo)

* 16 zoos in Texas are AZA accredited

 

I did not see listed Primarily Primates, Bourne, TX north of San Antonio.

 

Is the facility open to the public? I stated in my introduction that I was not including establishments that did not allow visitors as most of the zoos on the list are traditional facilities with ticketing booths. There are several that require a booked tour on a specific day while Primarily Primates is not open at all to the public. If things have not changed then that is the reason why it did not make the list.

 

San Angelo Nature Center has about 90 species- mostly native herps, but some mammals, too. A few of the local rodents they have probably aren't exhibited anywhere else.

Also, Maxey Park Zoo in Pecos is no longer open.

 

@joneil238: thanks for your input and it doesn't seem as if Maxey Park Zoo is a great loss to zoo nerds. Does the San Angelo Nature Center actually have 90 species?

I'm going to add on another U.S. state to this thread: New Mexico. Am I missing any zoos?

Alameda Park Zoo - Alamogordo
Living Desert Zoo - Carlsbad
Hillcrest Park Zoo - Clovis
Wildlife West Nature Park - Edgewood
Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary - Ramah
Spring River Park & Zoo - Roswell
Rio Grande Zoo - Albuquerque
Albuquerque Aquarium - Albuquerque
American International Rattlesnake Museum - Albuquerque
Rio Grande Nature Center - Albuquerque (would this place count?)

 

Ohh very interesting! Do you know what species of mammals they have?

 

Texas and New Mexico

I have been to Texas, but I have never toured a zoo there. I would love to go to Amarillo and Fort Worth. I would also like to drive down US54 to see the Dust Bowl region. As for New Mexico, I have been to 1 zoo there (the American International Rattlesnake Museum), I highly recommend it. It was on the way back from California when I visited in 2013 (where I saw three wonderful zoos).

 

Austin Nature & Science Center is a sanctuary for native animals that can not be released back to the wild due to habituation or injury. It is open to the public.

 

I visited a few of these sites and the Franklin Drive-Through Safari's site reminds me of an old GeoCities site. It looks like it hasn't been updated in years. I like the idea of drive through parks but am always nervous that the animals born there end up in canned hunting operations.

Out of all those zoos you mentioned my top choice would be Fossil Rim. That one looks like an interesting facility.

 

Most of these hardly pass as zoos. In fact, many of them are better off without your or our patronage.

 

Bobcats, North American Porcupine, Gray Fox, Virginia Opossum, 2 skunk species, Black-Tailed Prairie Dog, Eastern Cottontail, and Brown-Nosed Coati. The rarities, rare in captivity anyway, are Ictidomys mexicanus, Ictidomys tridecemlineatus, and Xerospermophilus spilosoma: Mexican, Thirteen-Lined, and Spotted ground squirrels, respectively. The real draw here though is the herp collection- over 60 species of reptiles and amphibians with special emphasis on species native to Texas and Mexico. I feel kinda bad about mentioning a nature center as something to stop and see, but this one has reptile collection comparable to a decent sized zoo.

 

I'm not sure if there is a universal definition for nature center in the USA. I would describe the Austin Nature Center as half natural history museum (natural artifacts, interactive displays, taxidermied animals) and Half live animals on exhibit. Plus, there as teaching facility for children under 12. I don't know much about the teaching thing, because I don't have kids. But there is some sort of thing for parents to enroll there children.

I often refer to the animals on display as rehab-drop-outs. In the USA there is a regulation for birds. If a wild bird is entered into a rehabilitation program, it has to be released back into the wild within a certain time limit (I forget the exact amount) if it is judged to be non-releasable. Birds under that category must be euthanize, unless the bird gets a permit as an education bird. I think endangered birds can get a permit if they go into a captive breeding program or something like that, I don't remember all the rules. All the birds at the Austin Nature Center are education birds.

There is no food sold or "attractions" at the nature center.

 

The Houston Museum of Natural Science has a smaller facility in Sugar Land. I've never been to it, (I just read about it in their newsletter) but apparently they have some frogs and a saltwater aquarium. I'm not really sure how many animals a place needs for you to count it.

 

It is interesting to compare Texas with California in terms of quantity of zoos. Texas has approximately 50 zoos and 16 are AZA-accredited (32% of the zoos) while California has around 60 zoos and 23 are AZA-accredited (38% of the zoos). Here is the list:

http://www.zoochat.com/22/california-zoo-list-385296/

Does anyone know why Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is not AZA-accredited? It definitely was as of 2011 but did they lost their accreditation at some point or is the AZA website simply not updated?

 

With the discovery that there is a small public aquarium in Rockport, along with the upcoming opening of SeaQuest Interactive Aquarium, means that in the state of Texas there are now 53 zoos (41 zoos and 12 aquariums). I've visited 45 of them...many of those on a 2015 summer road trip.

Abilene Zoo (Abilene)*
Amarillo Zoo (Amarillo)
Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo (New Braunfels)
Aquarium at Rockport Harbor (Rockport)
Aquarium Restaurant (Kemah)
Aquatica (San Antonio)
Austin Aquarium (Austin)
Austin Nature & Science Center (Austin)
Austin Zoo (Austin)
Bayou Wildlife Park (Alvin)
Bear Creek Pioneers Park & Zoo (Houston)
Caldwell Zoo (Tyler)*
Cameron Park Zoo (Waco)*
Capital of Texas Zoo (Austin)
C.A.R.E. (Center for Animal Research & Education) (Bridgeport)
Cherokee Trace Drive-Thru Safari (Jacksonville)
Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park (Dallas)
Crocodile Encounter (Angleton)
Dallas World Aquarium (Dallas)*
Dallas Zoo (Dallas)*
Downtown Aquarium Houston (Houston)*
East Texas Gators & Wildlife Park (Grand Saline)
Ellen Trout Zoo (Lufkin)*
El Paso Zoo (El Paso)*
Exotic Resort Zoo (Johnson City)
Fort Worth Zoo (Fort Worth)*
Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (Glen Rose)*
Frank Buck Zoo (Gainesville)
Franklin Drive-Thru Safari (Franklin)
Gator Country (Beaumont)
Gladys Porter Zoo (Brownsville)*
Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary (McKinney)
Houston Museum of Natural Science (Houston)
Houston Zoo (Houston)*
In Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center (Wylie)
International Exotic Animal Sanctuary (Boyd)
Moody Gardens (Galveston)*
National Butterfly Center (Mission)
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch (San Antonio)
Saint Francis Wolf Sanctuary (Montgomery)
San Angelo Nature Center (San Angelo)
San Antonio Aquarium (San Antonio)
San Antonio Zoo (San Antonio)*
Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch (Pilot Point)
Sea Life Grapevine (Grapevine)*
SeaQuest Interactive Aquarium (Fort Worth)
SeaWorld San Antonio (San Antonio)*
Texas Discovery Gardens: Butterfly House & Insectarium (Dallas)
Texas State Aquarium (Corpus Christi)*
TGR Exotics Wildlife Park (Spring)
The Texas Zoo (Victoria)
Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge (Tyler)
Topsey Exotic Ranch & Drive-Thru Safari (Coryell County)

* 17 zoos in Texas are AZA-accredited

 

A novel on the zoos of Texas could start out, "They had the best of zoos, they had the worst of zoos."

 

New one for the list:

Buena Vista Wildlife Safare & RV Park (Evant)

I am currently on a road trip of Texas zoos and I drove past it today on my way from Fossil Rim to Topsey Exotic Ranch. We were running behind today already at this point and I did not get a chance to stop. Not sure I'll be able to fit it into the trip either.

 

If we are updating this then there is also the Houston Interactive Aquarium & Animal Preserve (Humble)....brought to you by the same people that do SeaQuest IIRC.