First babies of the new year have arrived. Two Edwards’ pheasants and a king penguin chick have hatched. Saint Louis Zoo celebrates first ?zoo babies? of 2016 | FOX2now.com
A male colobus monkey was born and has been named Ziggy. Hello, Ziggy; St. Louis Zoo welcomes baby colobus monkey : Entertainment
Another article about the Colobus-baby : Colobus Monkey is ?Jamming Good? at Saint Louis Zoo - ZooBorns
Article about proposed tax for St. Charles county residents to keep the zoo from charging an admission fee: Charge admission to St. Louis Zoo instead of raising taxes, St. Charles County official suggests | Political Fix | stltoday.com
The Zoo has withdrawn its offer on Grant's Farm: St. Louis Zoo withdraws Grant's Farm offer | Political Fix | stltoday.com
They will be going where an aviary once was. It originally was a walk-through area for lorikeets, and then held lemurs. It stood empty for quite a while, but I believe it is now demolished for the new exhibit.
An article about the new Tasmanian devils: New to the St. Louis Zoo: Tasmanian devils | Metro | stltoday.com
Zoo reveals 25-year plan, includes gondola, hotel, 6-acre flight cage and, perhaps, giant pandas | Political Fix | stltoday.com Another flight cage, the Silk Road, a savanna, and perhaps even pandas are in the zoo's future.
The article in the post above is more detailed than this page on the zoo website: Saint Louis Zoo Expansion :: Saint Louis Zoo Either way, one of America's undisputed best zoos is going to continue getting better. I was very impressed when I visited back in 2000 (I think that was the year). They have added even more since then (I only saw phase 1 of River Country or whatever it is called). I still cannot believe this is a free admission zoo - it is miles ahead of most other zoos in quality.
I'm glad the master plan isn't getting rid of the zoo's immense hoofstock collection although I'm sad to see the stellar Jaguar exhibit closed.
Not sure if this was posted before, here are some renderings of the expansion area (former hospital) that were produced when the acquisition first came about. The navigation is not very obvious - you have to click on the very small "next" word on the top left of the main image. St. Louis Zoo | South Campus - Bennett Gale
And the amount of money they spend on conservation work in the field is huge as well, quite an achievement as well!
Hopefully HR design firms designs are executed with brilliance unlike how WPZ botched the shoddy Banyan Wilds. STL's last large exhibit, polar bear point, was severely underwhelming. Sad to see the cat pits go. They were ahead of their time, except for the leopard and cougar enclosures. Nervous about the refurb to the Reptile House. Hope they don't ruin the architecture and history there. Pandas.... why?! Hope that doesn't happen. Also found golden monkey listed to be funny. Doubt even half of these pipe dreams will happen. It's nice to see my all time favorite Zoo get better. It seems the grizzly bear exhibit has not been talked about or construction started. Maybe it was shelved?
This article still mentions the bears: St. Louis Zoo plans new habitats for Tasmanian Devils, bears - St. Louis Business Journal
The current Red Rocks (where nearly all the hoofstock is) would become the Silk Road. The map renderings as of now list Addax, Addra Gazelle, Somali Wild Ass, Transcaspian Ural, Bactrian Camel, Chinese Goral, and Musk Deer (presumably Siberian- interesting to see its appearance in zoos). With the African section being mostly savanna animals, this means a good chunk of the collection is lost.
I agree with you on the polar bear exhibit, although I'm grateful for it considering the awful pits that it replaced. Not sure I feel the same about Big Cat Country though... many people on this site seem to love it, but I'm not a big fan of the complex myself and would have no problem seeing it go. I think the refurb on the houses looks promising, and it will be good for the primates to have much better exhibits. The Silk Road area looks really interesting... it's supposed to also include a nocturnal house. Perhaps bats will make their return to Saint Louis? With its current aspirations, Saint Louis may soon join the Bronx and a few others as zoos that cannot easily be done in one day. But I agree, I have very high doubts that most of this will come to fruition in the near future. A lot does ride on the sales tax.
@Coelacanth18: I agree with what you said. I wish they'd give us a little more detail on everything, especially the nocturnal house. They last time they had bats, it was a lone flying fox in a rather pitifully small glass box in the children's zoo. That was several years ago, thankfully.
Forgot to post. While in STL for IHS (International Herp. Symposium), work was well underway on Grizzly Ridge. It was neat seeing the old bear dens exposed. Kinda creepy. As they looked like prison cells, uniform shaped, side-by-side. There was also work being done in Children's Zoo. Don't know what for. Kali the Polar Bear, in his lame exhibit was pacing and sprawled on sand. The design of this exhibit is baffling and the choice of colour for the rockwork doesn't bode well for STL heat. Could see the heat eminating as the sun beat down on it. Yikes. Didn't care to see much else at the Zoo. Obviously the reptile house. Didn't see the birds or edible animals. Not my cup of tea. Heh.
