Lincoln Park Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo News 2021

The zoo has temporarily closed and will reopen in March:

Lincoln Park Zoo Temporarily Closing Monday Due To Pandemic

The Lincoln Park Zoo is temporarily closing Monday due to the pandemic. City and state guidelines require buildings to remain closed to the public.

The zoo says it’s not safe to keep all the staff and visitors outside, since it’s winter. Visitors also wouldn’t be able to see a lot of the animals. Most of them go inside their exhibits to stay warm.

The zoo is offering virtual events until it reopens in March.

 

At the end of 2020 a female Klipspringer-calf was born at Lincoln Park Zoo .

 

Congratulations to the mother. May the young one live a prosperous life in the exhibit.

 

For the first time in more then a decade 6 naked mole rat-pups are being raised at Lincoln Park Zoo :

Naked Mole Rat - Lincoln Park Zoo

 

3 African Penguins, a Victoria Crowned Pigeon, and a Hadada Ibis all arrived recently:

Bird Arrivals - Lincoln Park Zoo


Jersey the Gray Seal has arrived from Detroit:

Grey Seal - Lincoln Park Zoo

 

An African spoonbill chick hatched Jan 22:

Help Lincoln Park Zoo name recently hatched African spoonbill chick

 

Good news, the African Journey and Bird House exhibits are open again.

At least the indoor exhibits are slowly starting to reopen.

 

The zoo has an article in its magazine about a new project they're working on; getting their two chimpanzee troops acclimated to each other so that, perhaps in the future, you'll see hybrid groups consisting of chimps from both troops.

Many may not know this, but the zoo has a troop of chimps that are off-exhibit and rarely come on-exhibit. The off-exhibit troop includes 40-year-old Kibali, Magadi, Cookie (both of whom were previously at the Henry Vilas Zoo), Zachary and Patrick (who were both born at Busch Gardens), as well as Eli, a retired actor chimp who recently arrived at the zoo. The zoo is hoping both troops get along enough where some of the off-exhibit chimps can enjoy some time on exhibit.

https://www.lpzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Magazine_SpringSummer2021_v4_reduced.pdf

 

A brief update on the new lion house. It is scheduled to be open this fall. Additionally I am told that lions will not be the only species in the building. As far as what the additional species will be, I really have no idea but I suspect addition cat species.

 

From a conversation I had with a keeper on my last trip, they already intend to never bring back tigers.

It may be the serval, snow leopard, lynx, and red panda coming back.

 

Lincoln Park Zoo Visit Report: 04/18/21

My first visit of the year to the zoo and springily there was a lot happening. It was a slighty cloudy day with little humidly and overall pleasant weather. I spent about three hours at the zoo and took some updated pictures as its been a while since the gallery was updated with an influx of pictures from the place. A few notes of interest.

Pepper Family Wildlife Center is Nearing Completion:
The zoos newest upcoming addition is really starting to take shape. Compared to my last visit at the end of last year a ton of progress has been made. The rockwork has been done - including a massive heated rock in the center of the west most yard, the viewing areas have been set up, and the whole event space/coffee shop between the exhibits seems to be almost done. Apparently the center will even have a sunroof where the lions can walk above the visitors. Some of the animals from the previous lion house will indeed be making a return. No specifics yet, as the zoo is assessing how the animals did in their old habitats and sounds like only about three or so species will be coming back, and many will have access to more than just one habitat. I do find it a bit odd that they are keeping the old cages around, but to be fair I'm not really sure what they could do with that space. Still no exact date for opening, but the zoo is still aiming for a late summer/early fall opening.

Pepper Family Wildlife Center Construction by pachyderm pro posted 18 Apr 2021 at 9:15 PM

Pepper Family Wildlife Center Construction by pachyderm pro posted 18 Apr 2021 at 9:15 PM

Indoor Exhibits Reopened:
Several indoor exhibits have been reopened, thankfully. Between Lincoln Park and Brookfield I don't think I ever fully realized just how much of these zoos are indoors. They all had brief queues to get in but it wasn't very long at all. For future reference here is a following list of all of the opened and closed buildings.

Open
-African Journey
-Primate House
-Small Mammal/Reptile House

Closed
-Bird house (may have only been today, as they had a tent and line queue in front of it like the rest of the open buildings).
-Center for African Apes
-Children's Zoo Indoor Building
-Seal Pool Underwater Viewing

Misc Updates:

• There have been a few changes in the rainforest atrium in the small mammal/reptile house. The asian small clatter otters now have access to two exhibits, the one they've always had and the one adjacent to it that used to contain a crocodilian of some kind. The Jamaican iguanas also have access to two exhibits now, the existing one and the former Patagonian cavy exhibit. I assume the zoo no longer has that species in their collection.
• The fish have been removed from the pygmy hippo pool.
• This isn't a new update but it was never posted on the news thread, so for anyone unaware a new training panel for giraffes has been installed in the Savannah yard.

Animal Highlights

• The gorillas were putting on quite the show. One was beating his chest and then was chased by another who was swinging a blanket at him like whip. Very entertaining and was the first time in years I seen the gorillas in the bamboo forest exhibit. Even when they are given access, they almost always prefer to be indoors.
• Both polar bears - Siku and Talini (thats her name right?) - were together today. Between these two and Hudson and Hope at Brookfield, surely at least one of these pairs must have cubs on the horizon. Columbus has been single-handed carrying the US polar bear population as of late so some new blood would be great news.
• A beaver was making a ruckus in its holding area, gnawing on the fence and vocalizing.
• Two Japanese macaques were hugging each other, huddled together. Very cute indeed.
• Both the snowy owls and white storks seemed to be nesting today.
• There was a massive group of wild black-crowned night herons vocalizing above the red wolf exhibit in the children's zoo. I never noticed them before and there were at least a dozen nests scattered around the trees. Really neat.

Overall, a very fun day at the zoo. I am becoming increasingly excited about the fourthcoming lion exhibit and am entering anticipating its completion. Lincoln Park is real gem of a zoo and I am so happy to see it come so far in recent years. I can only hope Brookfield can soon get some love as well, as while their situations are hard to compare, Lincoln Park really makes Brookfield look shabby by comparison.

 

I haven't seen the bird house for several years, every time I try to visit it is closed for one reason or another. Once it was a private event, once an electrical problem, ect. If it it was intended to be open today but was actually closed, then there must be some sort of cosmic force preventing ZooChatters from seeing it.

 

Hopefully they just bring back the smaller species. Pallas’ cat for example would be a great choice, given the climate. I’d prefer the snow leopard not make a return though.

 

I don't know if this has ever been mentioned on here, but I think the reason they're not touching the other side of the Lion House is because those exhibits were just redone in 2007. I know it sounds unbelievable, but they ended up combining a couple exhibits to make more space. The smaller exhibits were given to Pallas' Cats and Red Pandas. Oddly, I recall reading an article at one point that said they had intended to replace the wiring with glass, but clearly they never did that. Not sure why, though.

The Bird House was open when I visited about a month ago, so there must have been an issue.

They moved them to the hoofstock area, where the alpacas used to be. They're still listed on the zoo's website.

 

Pallas cat is probably the one I most want to return, although hopefully serval and lynx can as well.

 

That’s strange. It was open when I came on the first reopening. Those birds sure know how to party.

 

The zoo recently opened up a carnivore keeper position. Some of the species mentioned the keeper would work with are red pandas, snow leopards, and Canada lynx. Those must be the other inhabitants of the Pepper Family Wildlife Center.

 

I was pretty confident on the red pandas - considering they are a cold hardy species that was a popular favorite in the old lion house - the lynx also aren't surprising. However, I'm not too sure how I feel about the snow leopard returning. Those cages just feel too cramped for a large big cat. As long as they have access to multiple exhibits it should be fine.

 

I would hope that all 3 species would have indoor space as well.

 

^ Red pandas and lynx never had on-exhibit indoor space, but I'm sure both of them had off-exhibit dens they could go into. Snow leopard (at least at one point) had an indoor space but I think over the years they had an exclusive off-exhibit indoor space.