Today, I visited my first new zoo in over a year and a half, the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY. In this thread, I am going to share with you my impressions of the zoo. - The first animal I saw upon entering the zoo was a large tank for a giant Pacific octopus. Not really an animal I expected to see, but it was in a large and spacious tank nonetheless. It looks like there were more fish tanks in the U.S.S Antiquities Cave, which was closed. - Rather than start in the building, I decided to start my trip by viewing the outdoor exhibits, starting with Primate Park. Today, the Primate Park contained a pair of siamang. The siamang were a little difficult to see, but the exhibit was very nice with plenty of climbing opportunities. - In the center of the zoo is a large pond for Chilean flamingos and waterfowl. In addition to some wild mallards, I saw red-breasted geese, common mergansers, emperor geese, lesser white-fronted geese, African yellow-billed ducks, ross' geese, north american wood ducks, and the flamingos. This exhibit was a fairly standard waterfowl exhibit, although I do think the zoo would benefit from having a larger flamingo flock, as I only see approximately eight flamingos. - The next exhibit I saw was the Penguin Coast, home to a large group of Humboldt Penguins. The penguins definitely had a nice exhibit, and it was interesting to see this noisy group of penguins, the noisiest I have ever seen! - Across from the Penguins was an exhibit for two red river hogs. This was by far one of the nicest suid exhibits I have ever seen, with plenty of ample space for the hogs to move around while not having so much room they were hard to see. - Next to the hogs was an empty exhibit with an "under construction" sign. It looked like this habitat used to hold some sort of large hoofstock, possibly bison? Despite it being empty, it was definitely a nicely-sized yard that will be interesting to see what the zoo does with. - A gray wolf exhibit was located past the Penguins. This exhibit was nothing special, but was certainly adequate for the single wolf I saw. This habitat also serves as a predator-prey setup with the two bactrian camels living on the hill behind them in a spacious yard. My one complaint with the Camel exhibit is that the location above the Wolf exhibit made it rather difficult to get a good view of the camels, which luckily is a species I have seen plenty of times. - One thing this zoo does very well is utilize terrain in its exhibits. This became very clear at the zoo's two caprid exhibits. The first of these was home to three Sichuan takin, and the second was home to a groups of Turkmenian markhor. Neither of these exhibits was very extraordinary, but both were adequate habitats for the caprids. It was very nice to see that this zoo is keeping caprids though, as it seems like less and less zoos are making this a priority. - Past the markhor was an exhibit for the zoo's amur tiger. This is another exhibit that utilized terrain very well. While certainly not the best tiger exhibit out there, it is a ve rug adequate exhibit and had good viewing opportunities. - After the tigers was a second Wolf exhibit, this time home to red wolves. This exhibit was definitely adequate, although did not have the best viewing opportunities. I did manage to see one red wolf hanging around the back of the exhibit. It was rather interesting that the zoo chose to feature two wolf species. I do believe they would have been better able to use the space if they only held one Wolf species and had a different animal in the other, such as dhole or coyote, to increase diversity. - Across from the wolves was a spacious paddock for white-lipped deer. I managed to see three deer in the exhibit. This habitat was the highlight of my trip, particularly because of how rare this impressive deer species is. The habitat is also very good, as it is a large size. It would have been nice if this habitat did not have chain link fence, however. - Across from the deer was the nicest habitat in the zoo, the Asian Elephant Reserve. I saw five of the zoo's six elephants, three females and a male out in the large yards and a fourth female inside the barn. This is the nicest elephant exhibit I have ever seen and provides plenty of space for the elephants to roam and do what they want. I have no complaints about the exhibit and was impressed by how close the elephants came to the fence. - After the elephants was an exhibit for two species, red panda and Reeve's muntjac. Both of these species were no-shows. It was a decent habitat, but nothing special. - One of the zoo's weaker outdoor habitats was the one for its snow leopard. I wouldn't say it is an inadequate habitat, but definitely on the small size. It was nice to see an active snow leopard though. - Next to the snow leopard was a habitat for stellar's sea eagles. The habitat was decent, but nothing special. However, the sea eagles were a nice animal to see as they are such an impressive-looking bird. - Across from the sea eagles is habitat for an andean bear. This habitat was a rather average habitat for a single bear. When I was at this exhibit, a keeper brought the bear inside and placed a watermelon in the exhibit. The bear was then let out and it proceeded to rip open and eat the watermelon. Definitely an entertaining animal. - After the bears was a row of aviaries. These were rather standard aviaries, with the highlight being a pair of red-billed blue magpies. This is a very impressive and gorgeous bird species that I wished more zoos would hold. They shared their Aviary with a Turkey Vulture. - Next to the aviaries were six more birds of prey tethered to poles. I sincerely hope this isn't their normal home, is it would not be adequate housing for them. Ideally the zoo would build permanent aviaries for these birds so they don't need to live with so little room to move. - The zoo also had a farmyard. The san Clemente goats and alpacas had a rather nice habitat, but the donkey and Guinea hogs were in habitats that weren't as nice, although not necessarily bad either. - After the farmyard, I entered the indoor section of the zoo, which was considerably weaker than the outdoor section. The building was very hard to navigate due to a number of dead-end paths in the area. The first part of this building contained a number of adequate exhibits for colobus monkey, black and White Ruffed lemur, patas monkey, komodo dragon and north american porcupine. None of these exhibits were especially great, but were adequate for their residents. Another habitat in this section contained some Golden lion tamarins who looked very white due to lack of sunlight. Ideally if the zoo ever renovated this area they would include some more windows to allow the animals, in particularly the tamarins, to receive natural light. There was also an Aviary containing von der decken's hornbill, superb starling, and Taveta Golden Weaver. The Aviary was decent, but lacked signage. - The best habitat in the building was the outdoor habitat for Amur leopard. This habitat was very tall and had a lot of climbing room for the leopard. - A second outdoor habitat contained north american river otters. This habitat followed the general trend of the zoo having decent habitats that weren't anything special. One unique thing about this habitat, however, was that the underwater viewing had a fish tank in front of it allowing visitors (like myself) to be surprised when an otter suddenly dove in behind the fish you were looking at! - A small Nocturnal area contained Fennec fox, prehensile-tailed skink, and Southern Tamandua in adequate habitats. There were also habitats for kiwi and galago, but they were no shows. The only inadequate habitat in this section was the one for Hoffmann's two-toed sloth. The zoo would have been better off having less sloths in the habitat, which contained at least five sloths. - The final habitat in the zoo was Diversity of Birds, a standard Rainforest Aviary. My biggest gripe with this Aviary was that there was no signage, meaning I may have missed seeing any number of species I did not realize were in this exhibit. It was also very concerning to see a number of wild rats inside a zoo building. Hopefully the zoo fixes this rat problem in the near future as it would greatly improve the visitor experience in the Aviary. In the Aviary, I saw white-faced Whistling ducks, ringed teal, Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove, temminck's fruit dove, nicobar pigeon, walldrap ibis, violet turaco, radiated tortoise, pied imperial pigeons, and another sloth. Overall, I would say this is a very average zoo. The lack of signage in the Aviary was definitely a negative, as were the rats in it. Hopefully, the zoo invests in improving this Aviary and the other indoor exhibits in the near future, as they fall short of the high quality outdoor areas. I look forward to seeing what happens to this zoo in the future as it has a very strong foundation and includes a number of unused areas that could make way for new exhibits. The biggest highlights for me were seeing white-lipped deer and red-billed blue magpie, two new lifelist species for me. The Asian Elephant Preserve was also very nice.
Thank you for your review of a zoo I have never visited, there are quite a few species there I would like to see!
I would definitely recommend this zoo. Not only does it have a lot of rarities, but many of the exhibits were very good, especially the outdoor ones. Not necessarily the best zoo I've ever been to, but definitely a very respectable facility.
