Asian Elephant Exhibit

I think that Elephant Habitat and Sanctuary Asia have been tremendous additions to the zoo in recent years, but out of curiosity I looked up my 2008 road trip thread and Oklahoma City had a number of interesting hoofstock species back then. The Hoofstock Row at the top of the zoo (now Sanctuary Asia) held Gerenuk, Bontebok, Sable Antelope, Greater Kudu, Somali Wild Ass and others. Where Expedition Africa is going used to be known as Deer Ravine, with Tufted Deer, Pere David's Deer, Hog Deer, Sika Deer and Chinese Goral. I'm guessing that all those species are now gone from the zoo.

@snowleopard Of the species you named, all are now gone. The zoo only has 9 ungulates currently: Giraffe, Addra Gazelle, Grevy's Zebra, Okapi, White-tailed Deer, Elk, American Bison, Indian Rhino, and Reeves' Muntjac.

@Coelacanth18 Thanks for the update. Although the zoo has improved greatly in recent years, the loss of many ungulate and canid species is alarming.

That's so sad, I can't believe they used to have so many rarer ungulate species and now only have the very basic ones that pretty much every zoo has. I'm glad the elephants, rhinos, etc. have better habitats now but I don't know if it was really worth it to lose all these other species.

The OKC Zoo is my hometown zoo and I agree that the loss of so many hoofstock species is both sad and alarming. The information provided by both Snowleopard and Coelacanth18 is completely accurate. I especially miss the Gerenuk, Bontebok, Tufted Deer, and Chinese Goral, and wish that a few of those would come back. The opening of the new Expedition Africa is slowly rolling out over the winter and I can provide a small update. The 9 ungulates listed by Coelacanth18 are still present at the OKC Zoo and five more have been added back to the collection. I'm excited to see Red-flanked Duiker come to the zoo for the first time, while Red River Hog and Nile Lechwe have made a welcome return. I'm less excited about the last two species because they aren't particularly interesting (to me) - Common Eland and Blue Wildebeest (Bridled Gnu). Common Eland were present at the zoo in the 1970s and early 1980s, but have been gone for nearly 40 years. To my recollection, this is the first time that the OKC Zoo has held Blue Wildebeest, but they Zoo had a group of Black Wildebeest (White-tailed Gnu) from the mid-1970s through about 2003. I've heard that the Zoo will be or may be swapping out its Grevy's Zebras from a small group of Mountain Zebras, but I don't know the current status of this - neither species appears to be on exhibit right now. There also has been talk of bringing back Bongo, but I don't know the status of that either.