I really don’t know. I’m was just thinking about going to the Los Angeles Zoo. Although I should try and visit the San Diego Zoo someday. I heard they stopped breeding their pandas so I should get over their soon.
The Oakland Zoo recently opened a 50-acre extension to the zoo focusing solely on animals that live/used to live in California. It includes wolves, eagles, condors, jaguars, pumas, black/grizzly bears, and bison. It is way up in the hills so you have to take a gondola lift to get to it.
If you live near LA, Oakland might be a bit of a drive but you could make it a Bay Area trip. Checking out not just Oakland but also SF zoo (which is really seeing some change), Monterey bay aquarium (The best aquarium in the world hands down), California Academy of Sciences (Lots of diversity in the aquarium section), and maybe Fresno Chaffee zoo which is almost comparable to San Diego in my opinion. In South Cal besides LA there is Santa Barbra zoo, San Diego zoo and wildlife park, aquarium of the pacific, Santa Ana zoo, and sea world (if you like marine mammals)
I wouldn't say hands down. I don't know much about Monterey Bay (other than that it is supposedly great and I would be happy to visit someday), but I guarantee that other people think other aquariums are better.
I haven't been to enough aquariums to say the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the "best in the world," but as someone that visits said at least once a year, I believe it must at least be one of the bests in world.
