Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park Swampdonkey's visit notes for ZooTampa at Lowry Park

I love making visit reviews of the zoos and aquariums that I have the good fortune of visiting. However, as ZooTampa is my "home zoo" I am not going to endeavor to write a new visit report every time I go. I am going to use this as a kind of ongoing visit notes for my trips to ZooTampa at Lowry Park.

 

This past Sunday I went to the zoo for a few hours with my family. It was HOT and rain was forecasted for the afternoon, as is always the case this time of year. We were there from about 9:30am - 2:00pm.

The first stop was the Main Aviary. I have been very critical of the Main Aviary in the past. At this point it is looking MUCH better, if still a little light on species compared to the past. Plants are looking better and the side aviaries are better. The dilapidated center observation platform still remains. Both the Cuban amazon and red browed amazon were out, which I personally have not seen.


Next up was Primate World. This section is also looking better, most of the animals were out and doing things except the lemurs. The mandrill habitat is looking pretty good and the baboons were going their thing. The baboons have removed basically all the plants from the habitat, but that is common for them to do. The spot nosed guenon was out, which was great as I have not seen them the last few times I have been to the zoo.


We spent a considerable amount of time in Wallaroo Station, I had a few minutes to explore the animals areas this time. The wallaby and emu yard still look terrible, the koala were sleeping like usual, the bat aviary was nice looking and the Australasian aviary is looking great. The barnyard is still closed to walking through, at this point I wonder if they are ever going to allow kids in it again.



Following Wallaroo Station we went into the African area. By now we were all VERY hot and we only went to the savanna side of the section. The nyala and marabou storks were not out, and only one zebra and one giraffe was out as well. I know they have 3 giraffe now, but I am not sure how many zebra they still hold. The penguin pool could use a good drop and power wash, but otherwise it looked good.


Following lunch we went to Asian Gardens. Asian Gardens is looking good, with all the rain the plants are looking full and lush. There was only one gharial out, which is a bit strange. Both rhino were on exhibit, which was great to see. The Sulawesi Aviary is looking really good. The plantings look great and the birds seem to be doing well. I saw they have bald headed ibis, I am not sure how long they have had them as I have not been in that aviary for a bit. That aviary is multi-species of birds, turtles, and muntjacs.




Unfortunately we did not have time to see the Florida area, but rain was coming in so it seemed a good time to depart.

Overall the zoo has made some minor improvements that have been good. The rain has really helped all the plants and the aviary plantings are being better cared for.

 

I've never been to Zoo Tampa, so correct me if I'm wrong, but all of the photos I've seen on it make it look very cheap.

 

That would be right and wrong. In the late 90s and early 00s it was legitimately one of the top 15 zoos in the USA. It is still top 20/25 IMO (maybe still top 15), but other zoos have improved better over time. I am probably overly critical since I have seen this zoo from when it opened until now, having volunteered there 2-3 days a week for around 7 years as well.

The areas built originally: Asian Gardens (formerly Asian Domain), Primate World, Main Aviary, and parts of Florida were all done really well for the early 1990s.

• Asian Domain was updated to Asian Gardens and is still very good. The updates were done well and the animal moves or acquisitions made a lot of sense. The Sulawesi Aviary was added in the renovation along with updates for pretty much every habitat. My major complaint here is the closure of the cave to walk down by the tiger and sun bear, I have no idea why they closed it and they did a poor job blocking it off. Otherwise this area of the zoo still looks great.
• The Main Aviary and Primate World have never been completely updated
  • Primate World has seen improvements and animal changes and still holds up well. The new hamadryas baboon habitat is done fine, nothing ground breaking, but fine. It is a bachelor group, which was needed in the AZA.
  • The Main Aviary is nice, there are not a lot of large walk-through, free-flight aviaries of this size in the AZA. However, as the zoo expanded many birds were moved to other aviaries in the zoo or out entirely. I am not sure of the exact number of species they had in the late 90s, but my guess is that there are 40% less species in the aviary now. However, the zoo at large probably holds more species than in the 90s as they have large aviaries in all the sections except Primate World. I know they closed the observation deck in the aviary for safety reasons, but why it was closed around 20 years ago and still has not been demolished is beyond me.
• Florida still holds up well. The original manatee building is fine, it doubles as a manatee and reptile building.
  • The habitats for wolf, alligator, manatee, eagle, and the original bear habitat are still very good.
  • The new panther and bear habitats leave something to be desired. However, I was probably overly critical in my original assessment of them. Time has given them better plantings and furniture. However, the design of the mock rock on the night houses is just awful.
  • The new bear habitat is terrible.
  • The new wolf habitat is nice.
  • Note there are now three panther, two bear, and two red wolf habitats. They did this so the animals can be outside more often and not in the houses 1/2 the time, which is noble. They could have done a better job, but if the animals are now in a better situation that is something to be applauded.

Areas built after the "new zoo" era: Safari Africa and Wallaroo Station.

• Safari Africa. This section is done well and still holds up. Admittedly it was better when it first opened. If you had no idea what this area held in the past it would hold up as a nice, if standard, African section.
  • The amount of animal changes in that section could be its own thread. However, the design is still good overall and not overly "cheap".
  • There are actually quite a few side aviaries with unique birds and the new shoebill stork habitat is nice.
  • The updated jeep tour/ride is done well and not at all cheaply designed. It is worth taking as they do drive through some animals and areas you cannot see from the walking path. The issue is the line to ride can be 40-60 minutes or longer most of the day.
• Wallaroo Station is a very good children's zoo that also holds some animals worthwhile seeing for any age visitor.
  • The koala and the flying fox, both of which have nice habitats, the fox being a great multi-species aviary with birds, bats, and turtles.
  • The Australasian Aviary is a must stop for any bird fan, it is not a walk through, but it is a good size.
  • The rock wallaby/emu habitat is OK, but it was better when it was a walkabout. Now it is just a dirt/rock yard.

My full honest assessment of this zoo, and I have seen a lot of zoos, is that it is good to very good depending on what you focus on. The new habitats are a bit of a disappointment, but overall the zoo is still very good.

I know they are planning some updates and expansions that should bring it back to great, if they can execute them properly.

 

I’d love to see a thread like that, documenting the African animal changes!

 

Sure, I made a post just now in the thread below with what I can remember:
Formerly kept Species Zoo Tampa/Lowry Park Zoo [Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park]

 

Whatever happened to their plans to get bonobos to replace their chimps? Is the former chimp exhibit still unused? This has probably been discussed here, but I have not been following Zoo Tampa news.

 

Tl:dr, for unknown reasons it fell through. I believe the zoo/anyone affiliated with the zoo are not at liberty to disclose what happened, but the end result is a Hamadryas baboon bachelor troop inhabiting the space.

 

Yes, as the other members said, the bonobo plans fell through for reasons not entirely known. Honestly the habitat is not suited for chimps or bonobo at this point, it is too small and does not have enough activities for an ape. Not that it could not be renovated to hold them, but in its current state it is much more suited for baboons, IMO. The renovations took quite some time considering that essentially all they did was add a glass front to the enclosure and power wash the wood, which looks nice but does not really add anything to the habitat at all.

 

I went to the zoo for a few hours this weekend. I was able to take the safari ride for the first time in over a year as the wait was under 30 minutes. Oddly they didn't drive through the paddock with the bongo, maribu stork, etc., But they did drive past the patas monkey habitat, which looks like it has been improved. The stork were all in a side enclosure, likely in preparation for the hurricane that will impact us later this week. It's probable that all the animals in that paddock were already in their night houses.

There is also a wattled crane habitat along the line for the safari ride, I was not aware it was there. The habit is actually done quite nicely.


The driver confirmed that they have 4 Masai giraffe now, three female and one male. There are also bay duiker in the okapi habitat, below is a not-great picture I was able to get. I thought they had removed all the duiker from that habitat.


I can also confirm that they have 4 yellow billed stork in the Sulawesi aviary.

 

I'm going to be in Tampa in November for an avicultural conference and it'll feature a behind-the-scenes tour at ZooTampa.

From what I gathered from Zoo Tours and from these pictures, already my biggest gripe is the Sulawesi aviary. This is my pedantic side coming out but if you're going to be specific about an exhibit name, show the fauna native to that place! I understand that the yellow-billed storks are stand-ins for the painted stork (to my knowledge are only at Zoo Miami, plus painted storks aren't even native to Sulawesi) but placing what looks like a young waldrapp ibis in the aviary for a supposed "Sulawesi"-theme aviary is completely dishonest. Why not call the aviary something like the "Asian Temple Aviary", "Across Asia Aviary", or simply the "Asian Gardens Aviary". At least with that, the waldrapp ibis wouldn't be a terrible miss.

Since this will be my first time visiting, I'll try not to focus just on the birds and make another full zoo species roster.

 

Yeah, I volunteered in the aviary department in the late 1990's and at that time we didn't have the Asian or African aviaries, so I don't really know the decisions that went into naming the aviary or bird choices, but I totally agree. Sulawesi just doesn't make sense for the name, and they actually have Sulawesi native birds in the main aviary.

I suspect that some of the residents moved in when the main African Delta aviary closed. But the waldrapp make a lot more sense in the African area than that aviary. Even the main aviary, although perhaps they don't want to mix them with scarlet ibis for some reason.

I don't have any contacts in the zoo any longer, but in the past there was generally a reason for animals being where they were, so I am curious if that is still the case or if it's more of a "well, we can put those in there" kind of motivation.

In the past (before Africa was built) the zoo had a "pheasentry" where the more sensitive birds were kept off exhibit for breeding.

 

I have to say, I visited several years ago and was highly disappointed with their Indian Rhino exhibit. Was definitely one of the few low points of the zoo

 

You are not wrong, it is actually substantially larger than it was at one time - if you can imagine that. They have expanded it out into what was in the past a "Florida biome" natural garden, later it was Key deer and sandhill cranes. I have seen worse in the state, probably Central Florida Zoo would take that title. But it is not terrible compared to many (maybe even most) small/mid size zoos that I have seen, but it probably is the worst habitat in that section of the zoo.

Also of interest is that when the Asian elephants were removed they moved the rhino into that habitat and Prezwhalski's horse into the rhino yard (the tapir were where the gharial are now). At that time it was an upgrade for them as the "Asian Domain" had not been renovated. When they renovated the section they moved the rhino back to their original yard and put the tapir in the original elephant yard (with renovations), and the horses left entirely.

 

I must admit, this was maybe 6 years ago that I was there. I was a guest of the zoo at the time, visiting from the UK and having a tour from their curator of mammals. Obviously this was neither the time or place to be knocking their exhibit whilst there as guests, but I was thoroughly disappointed at the size of the overall exhibit, given what I am used to seeing within the UK as well as collections further afield.

 

Visit from October 16 2022

We went over to the zoo for Creatures of the Night. I am not going to focus on the event, it was a typical zoo style Halloween event.

You can see that in the small black bear habitat (habitat #1) they removed two of the shade/climbing platforms. Picture #1 is the new look and picture #2 is the original picture I took of the habitat back in March of this year when it opened. They somehow managed to make an already terrible habitat worse. On the plus side you can see all the grass has grown in, however, now that the rainy season is ended I expect to see that grass all die off. They also added two shade cloth sections over the south part of the cage. The pictures are taken from exact opposite sides of the cage, you can tell by the green framed glass.


The Manatee tank had 8 manatees in it, I do not think I have seen that many in that tank before. Two were juveniles, but that is a lot of manatees in the tank, the other tank was not visible due to decorations blocking it. It is possible they moved all the manatees to the larger tank and the smaller one was unoccupied.

 

Notes from a visit this weekend:

Main Aviary -
The Cuban amazon parrots are all gone, the space is being used for various species until the zoo decides on a direction they want to go. The birds were on a private contract loan and the contract was mutually terminated due to no success in breeding.

What is strange is that the birds in those side cages are birds that have been long time species for the main part of the aviary, so I don't see why they would bother putting them in the side cages.

 

A few updates, all in "The Canopy Aviary".

• Side aviary in the smaller section has an un-signed hornbill (maybe Sulawesi hornbill?).
  
  
• Side aviaries in the main section:
  • Previous toco toucan and Amazon aviary - Bleeding heart dove and boat billed heron (strange since they are also free flight in the main aviary).
  • Previous Amazon aviary - Red-billed hornbill and red-legged seriema.
  • Previous great hornbill aviary - Southern ground hornbill (moved from Nyala habitat in Africa).

Otherwise the zoo is looking really good. TONS of plants have been added to the Florida section, it really makes it look way better. The Aviary has been cleaned up a lot and generally looks much better. The dilapidated viewing platform remains, however.

The zoo now has a pretty good collection of hornbills. I believe they now have (although I may be missing some):

• Red-billed
• Southern ground
• Southern yellow billed
• Silvery-cheeked
• Von der decken's
• Visayan
• Unidentified (maybe Sulawesi?)
• Great-Indian (off display, may not have any longer)

Lastly, the new stingray area looks nearly complete (based on a peak through the construction screen).

Oh, and if you make it during Creatures of the Night, definitely check out the Black Widow show, it is really cool. It is over in the Safari restaurant and they have a woman dressed in all black and she does a show with fountains and really great music. I think it is on the hour after 5PM.

 

I should also mention that construction walls have now been erected in the soon to be former “Wallaroo Station” area; and that the indoor komodo dragon enclosure across from the orangutans is receiving some changes to make the space more suitable for their youngest dragons.