Smallest AZA zoo?

Only "traditional" zoos. No aquariums, theme parks, safari parks, or individual aviaries/butterfly houses (aquariums are included if they are part of a zoo)

Of what I found, it might be the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington IL which is only 4 acres

 

Another contender is Charles Paddock Zoo, which is only 5 acres in size according to wikipedia.

 

The Cosley Zoo in Wheaton, IL is another 5 acre facility.

 

A third 5-acre facility: Sequoia Park Zoo (Eureka California).

 

Where’d you see that?

Brandywine Zoo is 4.5 acres.

 

I too was wondering where he/she got this information so after a little google I found this page (Volunteer Opportunities / Internships | Bloomington, IL Parks & Recreation) which says.

Also, @EmmettTheOtter I see you're new, so welcome to Zoochat!

 

I don't know the acreage but I'd be willing to bet the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center is in the running.

 

did you mean by area, which everyone is going with or by
species? numbers of animals?

 

I'm guessing size, going by the following quote.

 

Miller Park Zoo is *not* 4 acres. I have been there and Charles Paddock Zoo (which is consistently listed at 5 acres) and the latter is decidedly smaller.

Henson Robinson Zoo is also 5 acres, and in real life feels comparable in size to Charles Paddock; perhaps slightly larger.

 

Ochsner Park zoo isn't AZA-accredited, but it is trying to be. I don't know the exact acreage, but if and when it gets accredited, it would be among the smallest.

 

One website said it was 2 acres

 

That sounds about right.

 

Maybe it's the layout? Number of exhibits? (I haven't been to any of these)
Some zoos might feel larger or smaller even if they are the same size. An example is how the Roger Williams Park Zoo feels smaller the Philadelphia Zoo. RWP is just 2 acres smaller than Philly, but feels like it is only half the size.

 

It will definitely be the smallest if accredited (most of the other smallest ones are still larger and have expansions planned).

 

I just did a Google Maps area calculator to test this. Turns out I was wrong, but for good reason. Miller Park Zoo *does* appear to be about 4 or 4.5 acres, but Charles Paddock Zoo (which was my comparison) is *not* 5 acres like it has been listed before. In reality it is closer to 2.5 acres; this intuitively makes sense as it did not feel like 5 acres when I visited.

So with that being said, it is possible that Charles Paddock is the smallest "traditional" AZA zoo.

 

Maybe they include parking? Many zoos include areas not occupied by exhibits (such as a forest off to the side that's still in the boundary) as part of their total area.
I did a similar calculation for Zooamerica and it looked like the exhibits only occupied 5-6 acres, even though they claim 11 acres. I then realized that they include the parking lot and some unnocupied space

 

It may include the parking lot; that would make sense, as the parking lot is practically the size of the zoo so it would effectively double the space. It's pretty annoying that they would do that, as it doesn't give an accurate representation of the space being used for the actual zoo portion.

 

I looked at it on Google Maps and switched from satellite to map and back. They do include the parking lot to the east of the zoo. They also include a small part of the park.

 

A little off topic, but where did you find that this place is trying to get accredited? I can't find anything about it online. The only mention I saw of the AZA and this zoo was a couple people from the zoo giving a presentation at this past AZA conference. The news is just surprising to me given how small it is.