Springhaas

Is this the entire enclosure? The zoo appears to have been constructed in a couple of weeks in somebody's backyard!

@ snowleopard - Its a very new zoo. This is the first times I have signed on to ZooChat but have been following ZooChat for about a year. I remember when he posted on here about his zoo. I believe that was about a year ago.

I'm sure building a zoo is a hard and expensive thing to do. Once this zoo is a couple more years older, the economy goes up, and more people will know about it, then things my start to change.

Anyway, At least he has a Springhaas. They seem to be quite uncommon in American zoos.

@Pacarana: Being a new zoo is not an excuse for slipshod exhibits that do nothing but create a negative image about zoos in general. I'd rather there not be a zoo at all than the crappy one that is seemingly being held together by duct tape. That might sound harsh but the photos posted on ZooChat are all pretty grim.

I agree 100%. The fact that it's called "Capital of Texas Zoo" gives the impression of something large and city-funded. This looks like someone's backyard menagerie.

And it's NOT good if he has just one springhare, and they are uncommon in the USA. It would be better off with others of it's kind and the potential to make more springhares.

On the home page of the zoo's website it mentions the fact that the zoo has been receiving bad reviews. What a shock! The photo comments on ZooChat are from Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis and native Texans...and I've yet to see anything positive. I do not think that the major zoological institutions in Texas (the ones that are actually AZA-accredited and thus worth visiting) have any fears from this establishment.

Copied and pasted from the zoo's home page:

"We have reason to suspect we have mainly been receiving bad reviews from two places: one of our competitors, and from a number of animal rights extremists, who don't believe there should be ANY zoos."

Website:

Home Page

I like your characterization of this place as a "second rate guinea pig farm". The guinea pigs at least look like they have a decent exhibit. Good to see that this zoo couldn't screw that up.

Also I have to wonder who they see as their competitors? Is the Austin area saturated with third-world quality zoos?

I'm a zoo loving fanatic, and have been my entire life. But simply stated, this "zoo" looks horrendous! It almost makes the Las Vegas Zoo look decent...NOT!!!

Have any of our Texas Zoochatters been to this zoo recently? I was curious if the place has upgraded at all or if it still looks mostly like the exhibit above.

In looking at their website I see that they now have a hippo. I hope that it has a decent exhibit.

From what I've been told, they have upgraded nearly every exhibit that has been complained about on here. The hippo exhibit is the largest in Texas.