Just in case anyone else wanted a direct comparison of both visuals released. I noticed a difference immediately but couldn't put my finger on it. It looks like the old one would have been steel beams and mesh but this one has a full (steel?) frame as well as a viewing shelter. The angle also draws a lot more attention to the keeper entrance. (I almost thought it was a walkthrough for a minute, by putting that right in front!) The vegetation is also moved around which is probably just artistic choice. I also have to admit I previously assumed the aviary would be built off the building itself but it looks here like there may be a little bit more of a path between them.
I only see two in the rendering, one on either side of the viewing shelter. They aren't just keeper entrances, but also holding/separation areas for the birds which is why there may need to be more than one. It would be neat if it there was a walk-in portion like some of the exhibits at the International Crane Foundation, but the space isn't nearly large enough considering how territorial cranes can be.
According to an article from the Chicago Tribune, the koalas will remain at the zoo through the rest of the year.
Brookfield Zoo Chicago Visit Report, 03/10/2024 Yeah, I’m never gonna get used to calling it that. First visit of the year and you can tell we are in the call before the storm period of development with all of the preliminary construction going on. The former lemur exhibit has been completely vacated with all of the existing features removed and the entire back portion of the nature plaza is fenced off, although actual construction of the prairie aviary has yet to start. Only a few updates to share, but ones that will be of interest to some. Updates: Updated signs are up by both entrances advertising the upcoming exhibits and attractions rolling out in 2024/2025. Notably absent is any mention of the prairie dogs or eagle owls, insinuating that those exhibits are once again being pushed back to a later date. The Raggiana bird-of-paradise is no longer on exhibit for the time being. The Australian birds have moved to that aviary and their former space next-door now holds surplus fruit doves and a male Gamble's quail - there is still at least one female quail in the Sonoran desert aviary. Pinniped Point has been renamed Sea Lion Cove. This is reflected on the updated map that's posted around the zoo. The ring-tailed lemurs were on-exhibit in Clouded Leopard Rainforest today There's some sort of construction going on inside and around the Discovery Center, not sure what exactly is happening. Tropical Forests Construction: Things have really picked up on this front. Walls have gone up on the Gorilla Conservation Center and the outdoor primate enclosures are now visibly outlined. It's cool to clearly see the size of these exhibits and the viewing areas are also coming along nicely. Something of note is that it appears two large mature trees are being maintained in one of the gorilla enclosures, which is welcome. Animal Highlights: Easy highlights were the brown bear cubs, which were incredibly entertaining, play fighting and running all over the exhibit. I had to have taken at least 50 photos and uploaded the best of the bunch to the gallery. This was my first time seeing them and they are immensely endearing individuals. Despite going through in the middle of the day, every resident of Desert's Edge was up and awake except for the Pallas' cats oddly enough. I even saw the sand cat awake for the first time, albeit for only a few seconds. The spider monkeys and squirrel monkeys were quite active. No sign of the capuchins, although I've heard from others that apparently all three species have all been out together at once. The red-flanked duikers and congo peafowl were both right by the mesh. Always cool to get only a few inches away from such elusive species. A Few Observations: I must say that I find it immensely odd that the prairie dog and eagle owl exhibits are seemingly being delayed yet again. I get the prairie dog exhibit may be a bit more complex and has hardly been talked about by the zoo, but the eagle owl aviary doesn't feel like a project that should take a terribly long time or substantial investment to complete. I’m also wondering if there are still plans for an indoor toucan/seriema exhibit. There definitely were at one point, but I’m unsure if they’ve abandoned that idea. Poe the raven is still in the coati exhibit for the time being, so I find it odd they aren't taking the opportunity to do the indoor exhibit while the aviary is empty. It just seems really inconvenient to move the birds off-exhibit every year. Regardless, it's excellent to see so much work going on around the park and even if it's just the prairie aviary and native turtle exhibits that open this year, that's still very exciting.
@pachyderm pro great photo of the bear cubs playing and thanks for the updates. I don't have any info on this but I suspect the lack of public progress on the prairie dog and Eurasian eagle exhibits is a results in modifications to the forthcoming master plan. I think both of those exhibits were originally conceived by the prior administration before the master planning process began. From what I understand about the originally planned location of the prairie dog exhibit it was just to the east the pachyderm building. I wonder if this space is now being considered as part of the renovation to the pachyderm building in the master plan or something else... hopefully we will find out by June.
I was going to question this at first, because the alliteration of the existing name works so well and it's long-standing... and then it hit me that a lot of zoogoers probably don't know what a 'pinniped' is to begin with. Then it made sense. This is exactly what I was wondering, too. Interesting to know these were Strahl era ideas, I didn't know that -- definitely hopeful they move the prairie dogs elsewhere in the new master plan though. It's the only exhibit proposed that I feel really disrupts the bio-geographic theming of the zoo.
Got out to Brookfield Zoo for the first time in years today. My last trip was pre-pandemic, don’t know the exact date. This is my general comments on the zoo as someone who’s been away for a while and only seen it twice, total. -Shame Desert’s Edge lost the Caracal / Rock Hyrax. I know zoogeographic theming always erodes with time but it did go from specific desert to general desert in the process. -Good luck seeing cats (and bear) active. Lions, leopard, sloth bear. I’ll take 50% with cats (and bear). Some of the cat exhibits do feel a bit small for modern standards. Notably the lion. Nothing exceptional in any case. It is a shame when Brookfield has just a ton of mostly unused land. -Clouded leopard was active. Ringtail lemurs were signed and on exhibit. -Pinniped Point / Sea Lion Cove is pretty good. Seal pool felt shallow for them, though. I don’t have many thoughts here. It looked like there were dolphin shows for people who reserved in advance. Will be properly reopened Friday. -Food was decent for a zoo. Saw 4+ unique salads between restaurants and they weren’t even boxed. Props for having multiple places open in the winter. I swear they entirely redid the menu for BZ’s since my last visit. Also felt like there were enough bathrooms spread around, except for maybe the northwest corner of the zoo. -Wild Encounters was good since it was free. I spent a long time brushing goats. I would not have paid to brush goats but it did make my day better. I approve of giving corvids access to more complex tropical primate (or coatimundi) exhibits during the winter months. -Play Zoo feels entirely worthless in the winter, even if it’s free. Mostly herps that are repeated elsewhere in the zoo. Even the pet area was closed. -If they plan on keeping flamingoes they should really merge the swamp aviaries. I’ve seen almost all those species mixed elsewhere and it would give the flamingoes flying space. Also, did they really keep a giant salamander in the caecilian enclosure? I remember it but have a hard time believing it. Anyway, the caecilians were active. I spent some time watching them. Same for the river otter. -Tropical World felt smaller than I remembered up until the moment I actually saw how small the animals looked in it. Can confirm all three primates were active in South America. That exhibit feels like it has a lot of wasted space with the water, though, since I don’t think anything uses it. Didn’t see the anteaters. Didn’t see them last time, either. Where do they like to hide? Asia is at least a really good otter exhibit with a fairly large group. Watched them play for a while. Also a pretty great gibbon exhibit for what it is. That isn’t the worst AZA orang exhibit I’ve seen but it’s a really good thing they’re getting the expansion. Similar thoughts on the gorillas. The other Africa section feels almost too big for just two primate species. Lot of ground space that’s going unused. -The turtle exhibits were closed but they look nice enough for what they are. Probably not enough to draw me back there until the prairie aviary reopens. Also, when I heard the parrot exhibit described as bird on a stick I at least thought the parrots would have access to more than one stick each. -Dear god does this zoo have a lot of herps. Two buildings worth and then some. I don’t actually see many eastern indigo snakes in zoos so it was cool to see one. The currasow in feathers and scales enjoyed sitting everywhere but inside their designated aviary space. There was a roadrunner I spent about fifteen minutes watching who was very proud to have a mouse in their mouth. That they wouldn’t eat. They would do everything else - running, tap dancing, vocalizing - but not eat the mouse. -Where are the adult epaulette sharks in Living Coast? I only saw the pup. Exhibit was worth going into for the dwarf seahorse and a gull that seemed hellbent on moving short distances while airborne, just to remind the penguins that he could fly. I could definitely see myself skipping this building in future visits. -Great Bear Wilderness is the highlight of the zoo for me. Especially since there weren’t many people there. The wolves were active and even approached the glass / fence. The larger brown bear was sleeping right against the glass. The bear cubs were playing with each other and digging holes. The bison habitat is a thing that exists. Great area. -Habitat Africa was a mixed bag. Pretty much nothing was out in the savannah except the wild dogs. The klipspringer weren’t indoors or outdoors. I’ll probably skip the savannah building in the future. None of the forest animals were outside. Okapi was also off exhibit indoors. The red-flanked duikers are adorable. Got to the pavilion far too late and the pangolin was a no-show. Same for the elephant shrew, even though the keeper put food in at 4:30. Shrew couldn’t be bothered to wake up and eat. The giraffe indoor area made me sad and I left almost immediately. -Are the pachyderm house animals just gone now? Building was closed, nothing outside. -This was the most active I had ever seen echidnas. One was moving around in the nocturnal house. The two with the kookaburras were walking around, manipulating objects, one lapped up water with their tongue. The birds did not seem to like the activity but didn’t do anything about it. The one wombat I could see was asleep but even a sleeping wombat is still a rare sight. They really aren’t even trying to fill the herp exhibits in the entry, are they? At least the frilled lizard was really cool. -Didn’t go back to look at the hoofstock exhibits beyond the camel. I was done and the zoo felt really empty. Almost unnervingly so. Fewer than two dozen cars in the north lot when I left at 5:15. I think it’s a better zoo than I remember. The many buildings certainly help in the winter. Many of those buildings are showing their age, though. But Brookfield has land to build on and now they have money to spend. Look forward to seeing what they do in the future.
The domestics room has been closed since the pandemic and shows no sign of ever reopening. I hear it's used as a space to to train the animal ambassadors these days. Merging the three aviaries was something that was discussed after the crocodiles left last year but nothing seems to have ever came of it. Not sure what's going on there, but I doubt the flamingos will be fully flighted even if that does happen. The zoo has been advertising the new seasonal "flamingo walks" where keepers take the birds around the zoo for a stroll. The salamander exhibited where the caecilian currently is was a juvenile individual that has since outgrown the space. The tank is the length of a full grown giant salamander. The anteater is very hit or miss these days. There's a very large set of stairs that leads to off-show holding and I'm assuming that's where it hangs out much of the time. I have seen them use the water before, although that was mostly for the tapirs that once inhabited the exhibit. I've yet to actually visit during warm enough weather to see the outdoor "exhibits" in use, but they definitely do have access to more than just one stick. They can traverse all of the branches connected to the perches. The adult sharks outgrew their previous tank and were moved off-exhibit. The interior of the house has been closed for a year, but there are still a number of animals present: black rhino, pygmy hippo, South American tapir, capybara and Galapagos tortoise. All but the tapirs and tortoises are down to just one individual, so definitely feeling a bit empty in some areas.
I agree, both of the lost species are interesting and I would say in my experience the Ocelot is practically invisible anyway so breaking up the geography feels like a loss. I don't mind blending Africa and Asia as much these days but the Americas does feel like a bigger ask. I want to second this. In my annual visits over 15+ years the only two times I've seen the sloth bear were both around 10am-11am. I do find the lions and Amur leopards more active than the other animals along the walkway. The exhibits along the walkway don't meet modern standards and it's no surprise modern big cat exhibits are one of the things Dr. Mike has teased. I think it's kind of amazing though that these grottos are a century old and still superior to some bear and big cat exhibits from as recent as the nineties though. They seem to be among the best of their kind and age. I sort of hope whatever happens to the grottos after the cats are moved out combines the existing grottos into ne or two larger habitats. Were all of the salads in one location or spread out? I think you're correct about BZ Red Hots. I might be wrong but I think the zoo has changed vendors since pre-pandemic. This is exactly why I think this was a really positive change to make them free and open.
I did see the ocelot! They were asleep about halfway up the wall, but was awake. The Pallas cat was licking themselves clean. I saw the sloth bear awake and moving around 12:30. Will keep timing in mind for future visits. The space behind the path is also unused space. They could expand a few exhibits in both directions if they wanted, although that would get rid of the grotto aesthetic. Two in BZ, two by Living Coast. No overlap in salads between the two but most of the menu was the same. [QUOTEThis is exactly why I think this was a really positive change to make them free and open. [/QUOTE] Yeah. I did enjoy my time. Multiple goats walked up and wanted brushing. One followed me around for about fifteen minutes. I was not expecting that. I liked the pet area a lot. It felt like it justified the building since it was teaching kids how to responsibly work with the animals they could actually have as pets. And I got to pet a cat. Instant improvement to my day. Didn’t see the armadillos. Juveniles more sense. Might be sacrilege, but I kind of wish they’d kept the species and got rid of the otters and adjacent fish / turtles. There’s already a good otter exhibit right next door, a local fish exhibit in Living Coast, and turtle exhibits in the nature garden. It makes sense why they would move the Pygmy hippos and capybaras out, but the exhibits also aren’t super undersized for the species like the great apes ones were. Could have moved them to the pachyderm yards in the summer and kept them in Tropic Word in the winter. But, alas, no. The primates stayed out of each other’s way. A capuchin climbed up the same structure as a spider monkey but seemed to notice their mistake and left shortly after. One of the smallest winter holdings I’ve seen. If northern zoos must keep giraffes they really should be required to invest in proper dayrooms for such large creatures. Only two were occupied. One of those species was on display elsewhere in the zoo. EDIT: Thank you to everyone else who responded. It was good information. I just didn’t have enough to say in response to go paragraph by paragraph.
Unfortunately, indoor giraffe dayrooms are a common weak spot in northern zoos. Bronx Zoo, despite being one of the best zoos in the country, has a horrible indoor giraffe building. Buffalo Zoo's giraffe holding is even worse. What I find even crazier is the plethora of northern zoos who don't even have indoor viewing for their giraffes (e.g., Franklin Park, Cleveland, Philadelphia, etc.)
New article about the return of the dolphins. A leap forward: Brookfield Zoo Chicago unveils $10 million upgrade to dolphin center
I really do wish the salamanders could have stuck around. I don't know if Tropic World's otter exhibit would be satisfying for a non-zoo nerd. They can almost disappear in the high amount of space. I don't think a new outdoor otter exhibit would hurt though. The turtle garden exhibits are much better than their homes in The Swamp but that'll only be summer holding. We've lost the alligator snappers, crocodiles and giant salamanders now though, so the exhibit's really suffered with herps. Sometimes I think the exhibit has suffered more in the long run for having been a transformation of a historic building. Yeah, I think the anteater did or does take that route so I imagine it was considered. Adele the pygmy hippo was very old so that may have been a factor in not sending her between exhibits. It just makes me hope if tapir or pygmy hippo get new homes in the future they still make them mixed spaces. I'm not sure capybara were ever in Tropic World but I don't see why they wouldn't be a good addition either. I wondered if that would be the case. The other winter holdings I've seen have looked smaller to me - Milwaukee's giraffe building is excellent in terms of guest service and education but small for the animals, and I think Lincoln Park's real winter holdings are larger off-show but the area where guests can actually view the giraffe is much smaller than Brookfield. I don't know if Saint Louis even had a dayroom for them but Racine doesn't have one for display and I skipped Denver's indoor holding. Does any zoo have a good winter holding for giraffe, genuinely? I do sometimes wish zoochat had more discussion about indoor exhibits like this... That's definitely worse than my last visit. I suspect the zoo may be moving the reptiles around in preparation for when they close the building for renovations. Read this earlier and it's a great article that gives a lot more insight into the upgrades. I love that the renovations have made the underwater area look less like a barren tank and added a more naturalistic look.
Yes- Detroit. Multiple large stalls, some of which even have sand floors. Both photos by @ZooNerd1234:
Brookfield will be receiving a young female sloth bear next week from Woodland Park Zoo: Log in to Facebook
