I didn't see a species list for this place. Thought I'd throw one up. The Buffalo Zoo is fascinating for mostly the wrong reasons. Half of it is decent and clearly was updated in recent decades. The back half is a series of courtyards around a WPA era building. It's a fascinating piece of living zoo history, albeit one that isn't really able to provide excellent, or even adequate, habitats for all of its animals. The zoo's collection is pretty solid with a focus on large mammals, and a zoo with rhinos, hyenas, polar bears, giraffes, sea lions, snow leopards, lions, tigers, macaques, gorillas, and a half dozen hoofstock species is pretty impressive. They just... don't really have the space for it all. I kind of wish that they scaled back their mammal collection by half. It does seem like they're in the process of doing that as the elephant house now no longer holds elephants, which is great because that thing was hilariously inadequate. It wasn't even nearly big enough for the black rhino they have in there, but at least the signage suggested that was a temporary arrangement and the rhino had access to the outdoors. Anyway, guess I'll talk about the front half of the zoo first. It's pretty solid. The otter and sea lion exhibits at the entrance were fine. So was the cinerous vulture aviary, and those things are always a delight to see. The tufted deer exhibit was quite large for the species and I'm sure it's even better in the summer when there are swans mixed in. The giraffe house was awful, especially since the giraffes were locked inside due to weather. One started to run and then had to immediately stop when she realized there wasn't enough space to walk more than three or four steps. It was cool seeing a Rothschild's next to a reticulated, though. You can really get a sense of the size difference. The Indian Rhino, addax, and hyena exhibits were all pretty adequate for their species. Arctic Edge is still the new, marquee exhibit for the zoo. Now, there are a lot of new, top-tier polar bear exhibits that will blow you away. This is not one of them. It was a perfectly fine polar bear exhibit. The bears were together and the female, Luna. was being very friendly with the visitors. Even came up to me and waved her head a few times. I'm told she's often like this. The bald eagle aviary was quite good and there were a pair of them in a nest. I don't see that often. Always cool. The arctic foxes were the real highlight to me. The exhibit is big enough to have four and they were being quite playful given the cool day. Well, three were. One was trying to nap while the others wouldn't let them. I stayed there and watched them for a long time. Didn't see the Canadian lynx but the exhibit had some pretty solid verticality. The real star of the zoo to me was the Rainforest Falls building. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best rainforest building I've ever seen but it was still quite nice. The primates and ocelot had great verticality in their exhibits and there was an elevated viewing deck to watch them climbing. That was a really nice touch. There was signage for capybaras but I didn't see any and the exhibit was a bit small and way too aquatic for them. Really hoping they aren't there anymore. The swan geese were also inside for the season. The anteater exhibit was... fine. Nothing special. The anaconda mixed species exhibit was one of the better exhibits for the species I've seen. Overall, a solid species list with a good execution. Not a top tier exhibit, but still a very solid one. The WPA era half had its highlights. The rocky mountain sheep enclosure had a herd of nine (plus a rabbit who apparently breaks in sometimes to eat their food) and the concrete monument works well enough for the species. It was cool to see a decently large herd as they had some play fights, showed clear social behaviors / dynamics, and were just way more interesting to watch than a pair would be. I think this is also my first time seeing rocky mountain sheep in captivity. The farm was a perfectly normal farm exhibit. The boat display for kids was fun. I don't have much to say about it. Oh! The zoo food was actually excellent. That doesn't happen often. I went with a burger and both it and the fries were quite good. Pizza looked a little worse but idk I didn't have it. A bit expensive, sure, but not more than you'd expect for zoo food. Parts of the WPA structure were nice. The red panda exhibit didn't have a lot of verticality but was otherwise pretty good sized for the species. I don't actually know if their neighbors are still maned wolves or not. Didn't see any and the food laid out was clearly grass. I know they're omnivores, but I didn't take maned wolves to be grazers. There also wasn't any signage up for maned wolves. Just a maddening "Who is this?" sign that did not have an answer. The snow leopard exhibit is really too small. At least on the other side of the WPA outdoor area they merged two or three old exhibits into a pretty solid Japanese macaque habitat. There are lion and tiger exhibits in the old courtyard. Those were probably some of the best in the country at the time. Now they're just adequate. It was still nice to sit and watch the tiger for a while. There aren't many benches in the zoo and when I did find some by the sheep and the tiger I sat and stayed for a while. Would've sat longer with the meerkats, too, if they had nicer seating than just the ledge beside the exhibit. The bison yard was kind of small for the size of their herd. That was kind of odd since I'd figure the Buffalo Zoo would have a top tier buffalo exhibit. I'm not sure they could really expand it, though, without cutting into the adjoining park. Maybe someday they'll replace the elephant or giraffe house with a bison enclosure. That would be nice. This brings us to one of the best and the very worst parts of the zoo. The Amphibian and Reptile Complex has some very fun species and enclosures. (A Europe terrarium! A big exhibit just for a lot of turtles!) I enjoyed my time there and the terrariums were big enough that crowd control wasn't as big of an issue as I'd feared. I'm sorry, Tropic World. The Buffalo Zoo gorilla exhibit is just hilariously inadequate. Like, at least half the size of Brookfield's and also entirely indoors. Pretty much no verticality. Just a travesty on every level. The zoo was having some kind of ape awareness event while I was there and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would want to funnel people in that direction. The exhibit would be adequate for a midsize monkey species if they added a proper climbing structure. That feels like the first change I would make if I ran the zoo. Getting rid of the giraffes would be the second. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what's usually in Kookaburra Korner. Probably the wallaby and kookaburra I saw indoors. Then there was what some duck species and what I think was a himalayan monal. That's really my only uncertainty on the species list. So, with that out of the way, let's go. Italicized means I didn't see it. For everything but the capybara I suspect it's still on exhibit, I just got unlucky. This is particularly true in Rainforest Falls where the dense foliage and apparently flighted birds means that the sunbittern and heron could've been hiding. Sea Lion Cove California Sea Lion Otter Cove North American River Otter Cinerous Vulture Arctic Edge Polar Bear Bald Eagle Arctic Fox Canada Lynx Elephant House Black Rhino Goat Island Domestic Goat Cecilia Evans Taylor Giraffe House [Empty yard, looked like a tortoise exhibit] Rothschild's Giraffe, Reticulated Giraffe, Hybrid Rothschild's x Reticulated Giraffe MST Bank Rainforest Falls Free Flight: Roseate Spoonbill, Scarlet Ibis, Western Cattle Egret, Swan Goose, Green-Backed Trogon, Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Scarlet Macaw, Green-Winged Macaw, Sunbittern White-Faced Saki, Black-Capped Squirrel Monkey, Red-Footed Tortoise Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle, Giant Amazon River Turtle, Capybara Black Howler Monkey, Common Squirrel Monkey [Common Vampire Bat - Closed for Maintenance] Green Anaconda, Orange-Spotted Freshwater Stingray, Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle Giant Anteater Ocelot Amphibian & Reptile Complex Hermann's Tortoise, Legless Lizard Pancake Tortoise, Plated Lizard Fly River Turtle, Carpet Python Reticulated Python Mata Mata Mangrove Snake American Boa Indochinese Box Turtle, Chinese Three-Striped Box Turtle, Annam Leaf Turtle, Crocodile Lizard Fiji Island Iguana Malagasy Leaf Gecko, Henkel's Leaf-Tailed Gecko Dumeril's Monitor Gopher Tortoise Western Diamondback Rattlesnake Bushmaster, Chacoan Horned Frog Eastern Hellbender Spotted Turtle, Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake Panamanian Golden Frog Puerto Rican Crested Toad Prehensile-Tailed Skink, Solomon's Island Leaf Frog Green-and-Black Poison Dart Frog, Yellow-Headed Poison Dart Frog, Santa Isabel Dart Frog, Eyelash Viper, Dyeing Poison Dart Frog Komodo Dragon King Cobra Beaded Lizard Sidewinder Mexican Lance-Headed Rattlesnake Ecostation Brazilian Agouti, Golden Lion Tamarin, Southern Tamandua Sand Cat Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra Gorilla House African Rift Lake Cichlids Western Lowland Gorilla Unsigned Hornbill or Toucan? They were in an aviary within the gorilla exhibit. Barely visible. Slender-Tailed Meerkat Naked Mole Rat Silver Dollar Fish, Spotted Rafael Catfish Tentacled Snake Emerald Swift Lizard [Costa Rican Tarantula, Exhibit Closed for Maintenance] Blue Death Feigning Beetle [Ambassador Animal Exhibit - Ambassador Was Doing Ambassador Stuff] Hoofstock Yards Indian Rhino Indian Rhino, Axis Deer Addax, Roan Antelope Spotted Hyena Common Zebra Gemsbok Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Tufted Deer, Swan Goose Vanishing Animals Maned Wolf Red Panda Snow Leopard Japanese Macaque American Bison Ring-Tailed Lemur Courtyard Exhibits African Lion Siberian Tiger Delta Sonic Heritage Farm Mule American Milking Devon Cow Nigerian Dwarf Goats Babydoll Southdown Sheep [Former Turkey Exhibit] Domestic Chicken Kookaburra Korner Dama Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra, Himalayan Monal?, Mystery Duck There's a Frank Lloyd Wright house about half a mile from the zoo that I found to be more interesting. You should really check that out.
All of the giraffes are hybrid/generic giraffes. This exhibit doesn't exist, not sure what you were looking at. Yellow-Crowned Night Herons and sunbittern don't exist. There is however a black-crowned night heron. There is a capybara in the exhibit. Common Squirrel Monkeys have moved in with the black-caps/sakis. Howlers should still rotate with some brown capuchin. Im not sure what you mean by "American Boa", but the exhibit in question actually holds a Jamaican Boa. Did you actually see all three turtle species and crocodile lizard?! For a while now I've only seen the annams out, so I'm glad to see someone has had luck seeing more of the other species. To the best of my knowledge, all of the axis deer were dead. Did you see this species/is it back in the collection again? Maned Wolf passed away and was replaced with a second snow leopard exhibit. Wallabies and Kookaburra live inside the Ecostation. The "mystery ducks" are actually red-breasted geese. Eastern Diamondback, not western. Overall, however, this was a good list, and a fair review (although I don't agree with all of it).
Fenced in yard with a small pond directly in front of the giraffe exhibit. It's not actually marked as an exhibit on the map, but I could see something like tortoises being there. Look I'm just posting what the signs said. Again, just posting the signs. Yup! All four. Okay. So. Here's where I might be wrong. I saw something moving in the corner of my eye while I was walking away. Something with about the right size / color. I turned around and tried to find it but couldn't so. Maybe it isn't there? Thank you for this. Signed as western but, again, I'm just posting what I read. I'd be shocked if someone ever did agree with a review 100%.
These two aren't signed as such, though? I completely understand including signed species like the sunbittern, night heron, and axis deer you'd have no clue left the collection, and wasn't posting this to criticize/correct you, but was just adding more information to make the list more useful for people reading it.
Sure. I'd argue the Giraffe House is the zoo's worst exhibit, not the gorilla exhibit. While I'm not saying the gorilla exhibit is excellent, I do think a lot of the criticisms of it on here have been hyperbolic, as while it's far from excellent the gorillas do behave normally for the species, and it's not the "worst gorilla exhibit in the country" like some have suggested before- Cleveland's gorilla exhibit is easily worse than Buffalo's, if not others as well. I would love it if Buffalo had a better gorilla exhibit, however the exhibit is fundamentally solid, even if dated. At a minimum, I would love it if the zoo found a way to incorporate natural substrate into the exhibit, as well as replacing the roof with one that allows in more natural lighting. I agree, however, that it could make an excellent exhibit for smaller primates if given the chance. For exhibits I rate more highly than this review, I would say the bison exhibit is more than adequate, and while not world-class, is a great exhibit for a small herd of bison (such as the four at the zoo). Also, the capybara exhibit in Rainforest Falls is excellent, and I actually really appreciate the fact there's a substantial aquatic portion such that the capybara can actually display it's entire scope of behaviors. The black rhino exhibit is also an overall solid exhibit for a single rhino, so I'm a little confused why it was singled out as being not "even nearly big enough". There are, however, exhibits I view more poorly than this review, most notably the bighorn sheep exhibit, which I don't like due to the lack of natural substrate. Certainly not the zoo's worst exhibit, but far from its best either. While I do like a lot of the areas in the Reptile House, I'm also personally not a big fan of the komodo dragon exhibit, as it's on the small side and doesn't incorporate natural substrates. Forgot to mention in previous post- these are trumpeter hornbills.
Okay I meant the house wasn’t big enough for the rhino. The yard was fine. And I only put the giraffes above the gorillas because there is, at least, a decent yard for some of the year.
I loved reading your review and I found myself nodding in agreement on multiple occasions. I visited this zoo once, back in 2010 when the zoo somewhat inexplicably still had a couple of Asian Elephants and even old-school bear pits. I remember taking a photo of a sign that literally said "Bear Pits" on it, which was surprising to say the least. Here's one of my photos of the Spectacled Bear grotto in 2010: The zoo's all-indoor gorilla exhibit is an abomination, or as @Persephone nicely put it, "hilariously inadequate". Even after visiting almost 550 different zoos and aquariums, I cannot think of a worse exhibit at a major zoo than that gorilla cave. Between that and the disappointing giraffe house, with the giraffes locked inside their tiny 1960s-era barn for the majority of their lives, I honestly struggle to see how this zoo maintains its AZA accreditation. Why not give them a hard deadline to do something about the gorillas and giraffes? The outdoor giraffe yard is a standard size for a mediocre zoo, but the animals spend weeks and even months locked inside here: photo credit: @fkalltheway The zoos I've visited in Denmark, Sweden and Norway have milder climates than Buffalo, and bigger giraffe barns! Here's a photo I took of the troglodyte gorillas (with zero outdoor access): There's also the Bighorn Sheep herd on their mock-rock blob, the big WPA 1930s building and the lion and tiger enclosures that are all mediocre at best. The hoofstock yards are fine, but nothing truly memorable. America's 5th oldest zoo survives mainly because it is a short drive away from Niagara Falls, thus hooking a lot of travelers into its gates. It's not all bad. Otter Creek, Sea Lion Cove, Rainforest Falls and Arctic Edge, all built between 2004 and 2015, are well done. The revamped Reptile House, which hails from the 1940s, is also supposedly very nice. The historic elements (old Elephant House, Main Building, Reptile House) are cool to see for zoo nerds. However, this is a zoo that could really benefit from a capital campaign to overhaul a lot of the weaker exhibits. And how the AZA allows the facility to maintain its gorillas and giraffes in such piss-poor enclosures for decades is remarkable and says as much about the institution as it does the zoo. I wish that Buffalo followed Minnesota Zoo's notion of focusing on more cold tolerant species.
I find that the Arctic Edge, Sea Lion Cove and Reptile House are easily the best exhibits. Arctic edge while smaller than most polar bear exhibits is a major upgrade from the old bear pits and even the Polar Bears down I90 in Rochester. Sea Lion Cove is very naturalistic looking and its neat how they built the walkways over the water. The reptile House is quite impressive now other than a slightly undersized (albeit nice looking) Komodo Dragon Exhibit. In my opinion the Rainforest Exhibit is starting to age poorly, I remember when It first opened and it was very impressive for a smaller zoo. Birds were easily seen and abundant, and they had Caimans still. They also maintained the exhibits better, it seems after Covid they started to let things go to the wayside. Overall Buffalo is an enjoyable visit if you go in knowing they have some outdated exhibits still, and I visited years ago as a child when most of the zoo was still looking like the bear pits and the old Main animal Building was still open. I find it very nice in the summer when most species can be outside and the grounds look nice with the trees and plants in bloom, it has a great park atmosphere. I know they have talked about renovating more exhibits and I'm sure Covid has delayed this but they are trying with what they are given, remember Buffalo is still a rustbelt city and does not also have the same resources larger cities have.
The exhibit in front of the giraffe house used to hold waterfowl, I remember it from my childhood. Probably hasn't been used in 20 years. I do agree that it looks like a tortoise exhibit, thought they could easily turn it into a seasonal spurred tortoise exhibit for years.
