Houston Zoo 2010 - Right side of the very fine African Lion exhibit

September 2010

Right side of the very fine African Lion exhibit. I was impressed by this exhibit, considering that I think it was built in the 1960s.

Early 80s I believe, but very good even for then

Has this exhibit always held lions? If so this moat seems a little over the top.

I have to agree with you. Giant Otters would be perfectly at home here...

This is only a small portion of the exhibit. The moat is stocked with fish that the lions will hunt occasionally.

Is the exhibit still like that? I agree with others, the moat is a big much and it might have benefited the lions to have more land.

Yup. Still one of their best exhibits. The land area is quite a lot bigger than shown here.

There was a similar exhibit that mirrored this one, behind this current lion exhibit, with the old gorilla 'house' in between. It held a variety of tigers over the years, with a single White Bengal & a couple of Siberian tigers before it was demolished for part of the African Forest expansion around 2007. I believe all those tigers passed away before it was demolished. It was built around the same time (maybe a year or two later) as this one and had a similar large swimming moat (although I am not sure it was as wide as this one). The exhibit also had an elevated observation deck on the back rock accessible via stairs on both sides. Interesting that this lion exhibit had underground viewing, and the Siberian tiger exhibit had elevated viewing. I'm sure these were built as generic large cat exhibits and both had moats.

I'm sure the land area is bigger than shown here, and I trust the word of others who say it is one of the zoos best exhibits, but imagine how much better it would be if they had access to the huge moat!

I know lions don't like water, but I know they can swim. I've always wondered how quickly things might change in zoos if one day one of these lions just thought about swimming over the moat and walking out!