Went to both the Shedd and Lincoln Park today, was at the Shedd from about 9:00 am to 1:00 pm , then Lincoln park from 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm. Shedd was first and I was reminded about just how excellent the Shedd is. Probably my 3rd favourite aquarium after Georgia and Valencia. Highlights were the brilliant Amazon Rising, deep sea Isopods and the Pacific White-Sided Dolphins. After Shedd I went quickly to the Lincoln Park Zoo, unfortunately at this point in the day it was raining quite heavily, which restricted the visit somewhat. Luckily there were lots of buildings, and the zoo turned out to be pretty good, not great but definitely worth a visit. Highlights were my first Kagu, active Armadillos and the Regenstein Gorilla and Chimpanzee habitat. Tomorrow I go to the Field Museum and sadly leave Chicago.
Brookfield Zoo Review (Apologies for me taking so long to finish this review, due to a combination of things, but mostly my computer randomly braking down and taking a month too fix, I haven’t been quite able to finish this review, but now that I finally have I hope you enjoy it!) The first zoo I visited on this trip was the Brookfield Zoo, the largest and most highly anticipated zoo of this trip. As you will soon read in this review, I’m rather fond of the Brookfield Zoo, and some of it didn’t even have to do with the animals! One thing that I found great was just how friendly the zoo docents (and most Chicago people in general) were, it’s always great to talk to people who are friendly and love animals! Another thing I enjoyed was just how empty the zoo was, in 75% of the exhibits I was the only person, giving me lots of time to watch the animals. One negative thing though, closed exhibits. I totally understand that it’s the off season and the time to do renovations, but it’s still disappointing to see large parts of the zoo like the Living Coast and Big Cats be completely closed. Anyways, the first exhibit I came to at the Brookfield Zoo was the Fragile Desert exhibit, and I must say, this was an excellent first impression. First of all, there are some great species; M’hole Bushbaby, Bat-Eared Fox, Black-Footed Cat, Caracal, the list couldn’t on and on. Exhibit-wise, most of the exhibits were just a bit on the small side, but I was really impressed with the Meerkat and Rock Hyrax exhibits, lots of climbing opportunities and height. On the other side of the same building, past the unfortunately closed Big Cats section (only a pretty good Amur Leopard exhibit was viewable), was the Clouded Leopard Rainforest, another great exhibit. The namesake animal of this exhibit has one of the best exhibits I’ve ever seen for this species, all indoors (every animal in both the Desert and Clouded Leopard Rainforest are indoors) but lots of space, climbing opportunities and hiding spots. An active Leopard didn’t hurt! Binturong and Fishing Cat exhibits are alright, but the real stars of the exhibit are the Prevost Squirrels. The squirrels have a pretty average meshed exhibit, but they also have a wire tunnel that runs right over the head of visitors. Spectacular, and I’m not sure why more zoos don’t do this. It probably wouldn’t cost much, and it really enhances the visitor experience. Beside the Clouded Leopard Rain Forest was Pinniped Point, and I went there next. Just like the previous exhibits it was well done, the pools for Californian Sea Lions and Grey Seals being a nice size and great underwater viewing for the Sea Lions. The Dolphin Dome was also in this area of the zoo, and I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the exhibit was much larger than I expected, but it was completely devoid of anything, basically a giant bathtub. Not sure if this is bad for the Dolphins, but it’s terrible aesthetically. This exhibit done, I walked over to the exhibit I was most excited for, TropicWorld. Just before I went into TropicWorld, I decided that before visiting that colossal building, I’d pop into the much smaller Swamp building beside it. The Swamp turned out to be neither here nor there, fairly well done but nothing to write home about either. The best part was probably the centre area with Roseate Spoonbills and Orinoco Crocodiles in separate meshed exhibits, while the worst part was the terribly under-sized North American Otter enclosure. The highlight of the Swamp was probably the building the Swamp was in, a very impressive 1920’s (I’m guessing) house. So TropicWorld then, how do I even begin to talk about TropicWorld? For those of you who don’t know, TropicWorld is a humongous indoor rain forest building with 3 different sections for 3 continents: South America. Asia and Africa (that’s the order in which the continents are seen). Walking into the opening South American area, and the only thing I could think of was WOW this place is huge, and this is only 1/3rd of it! The 2nd thing you notice after the sheer size of the place is just how fake everything is. I’d been expecting it to be quite fake, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. South America was my favourite of the 3 sections, mainly down to the fact that there are 4 species of Monkeys (Golden Lion Tamarins, Goeldi’s Monkeys, Spider Monkeys and Squirrel Monkeys), plus Sloths and Giant Anteaters, in which I saw the latter swimming! And say what you want about TropicWorld, but you can’t deny the sheer amount of climbing opportunities there are for all the monkeys, although maybe not so much for the great Apes. The next area, Asia was probably the weakest of the 3, it just felt way emptier than the other two. Lowlight was the infamous Orangutan enclosure, but the highlight was easily the (active) Pigmy Slow Loris, amazing and totally unexpected! The African area was hit and miss, the African Monkeys zone (Colobus Monkeys and a species of Guenon) was great, but at the same time the Gorilla and Black and White Mangabey exhibits were poor. Also, rainstorm in the African Monkeys area, amazing! One other complaint that I haven’t heard anyone else talk about is that TropicWorld is a little too big for birds. I’m all for giving animals lots of space, but in here it was almost impossible to locate some of the birds. So overall, my verdict on TropicWorld was that it was a good house, some issues and problem exhibits, but lots of excellent parts as well. TropicWorld done, I headed over to two very similar buildings which I will lump together to form one paragraph. These two houses are the Feathers and Scales and Reptiles and Birds buildings. Of the two I’d have to say that I enjoyed the Feathers and Scales far more, mostly due to that exhibit’s giant rainforest aviary. The aforementioned aviary is amazing, one of the best exhibits in the whole zoo and the best part about it is that the aviary has an open area so birds can roam around the rest of the building. This led to 2 great animal experiences; the first was when I walked into the building to see a massive Wattled Currasow wandering around in the middle of the hall and the second was when a male Andean Cock of the Rock dive bombed right over my head. Just incredible! Reptiles and Birds was definitely the more reptile-focused of the two, and while it wasn’t bad, there weren’t any star species and the exhibits weren’t that great. It didn’t help that the walkthrough bird aviary was closed but it still wasn’t very memorable. After having a quick lunch at the Cafe de Sol restaurant, I made my way to the first proper outdoor exhibit of the zoo, Great Bear Wilderness. This is one of the newest areas of the zoo, which is immediately noticeable in the opening Bison exhibit, which has great signage and unique views of an average exhibit. Next up were the outdoor exhibits for the Brown and Polar Bears, which I found quite disappointing as they were much smaller than I’d expected from such a new exhibit. The underwater viewing is great however, as the bears have extremely large pools and their water is crystal clear. Sandwiched between the outdoor exhibit and the underwater viewings of the bears was in my opinion the best outdoor exhibit at the zoo, the Regenstein Wolf Woods. The habitat is extremely large with hills, streams and logs while viewing is also excellent. Near the Great Bear Wilderness was another one of the zoo’s major outdoor exhibits, Habitat Africa! The Savannah. Unfortunately this is definitely the wrong time of year to see this particular exhibit as quite a few of the animal species were indoors off-show (only the African Wild Dogs were outside in their average exhibit). As such, I can’t really give an opinion on the outside exhibits, but all seemed to be of at least a decent size. Luckily for me there was still a lovely little Kopje House open, tucked near the African Forest part of the zoo and so I went in their first. The best part about this house was the Kopje aviary, a decently-sized room with a Klipspringer exhibit to the side and loads of birds everywhere. Bird highlight was the Blue-Bellied Roller, a stunning bird that I missed seeing at TropicWorld earlier in the day. Also in this house was a Dwarf Mongoose enclosure and some small exhibits with species I can’t remember. The main attraction was the Giraffe indoor exhibit, which that reminded me a lot of the Toronto Zoo’s Giraffe exhibit for some reason. Not a compliment, but not an insult either. Just across from the Kopje house was probably the exhibit I was most excited for, Habit Africa! The Forest. Just like the savannah area I won’t be talking about the outside exhibits, as they were unoccupied, but all the yards appeared to be decent for their inhabitants. That didn’t really matter anyway, I had really come to see a certain animal in the indoor rainforest house. Due to this wanting to see a certain animal, I walked briskly through most of the house, noting that most of the species in this house (Western African Dwarf Crocodile, Okapi, Red Legged Duiker, Giant Elephant Shrew, Gabon Viper) had nice exhibits, but my mind was focused on only one species, the African White-Bellied Pangolin. First time going around the house I saw the Pangolin... sleeping in its log shelter. Good start but I really wanted to see a Pangolin active. Second time around same thing, but I wasn’t worried, as thanks to @pachyderm pro, I knew that Pangolin feeding was at 4:00 pm. Anyway, right at 4 o’clock keepers came in and fed the Pangolin. For a few minutes the Pangolin stayed sleeping, which made me more than a little bit nervous but luckily for me it started waking up and so for the next 25 minutes I got great views of a freaking African White-Bellied Pangolin all alone! Zoo visiting doesn’t get much better than that! I’ve seen Pangolins in photographs of course, but in person they’re truly incredible creatures, they way they move, their incredibly long tongue, their long fingers that remind me of Aye-Ayes, all amazing. Easily worth the price of admission by itself! Australia was up next and yet again this was a great small house, there are certainly a lot of them at Brookfield! The bottom floor of the house is standard, consisting of 6 or 7 reptile exhibits and a too small Kookaburra exhibit, but the real excitement started on the 2nd floor. The main attraction on the 2nd floor was the Outback area which only contained two exhibits but both were for great species, Short-Beaked Echidna and Wombat. I was very lucky here, seeing a total of 4 active Echidna’s and an active Wombat, which was great as well. After passing through an average Rodrigues Fruit Bat walkthrough, I went to the outside exhibits, which were all sizeable yards and contained Western Grey Kangaroo, Bennett’s Wallaby and Emu. Surprisingly all outdoor animals were out and active, not sure why as it was quite cold on the day of my visit. The final main exhibit I saw at the Brookfield Zoo was the Pachyderm House, and it was not one of the zoo’s better exhibits. It isn’t terrible per se, but it was probably the zoo’s weakest large attraction. The house itself is cavernous (I could see it housing all species of pachyderm at some point in time) but it felt empty and slightly decrepit, as only Black Rhino, Lowland Tapir and Pygmy Hippo live there now. The outside yards are fine, nothing remarkable but nothing deplorable either. Just up ahead of the House are a couple of nondescript yards for Zebra, Camels and Preszwalski’s Horses. Not really much to say about this part of the zoo, it’s just not that good. So overall I have to say that I was quite surprised at just how good the Brookfield Zoo was. I’d expected the zoo to have an encyclopedic collection but with lots of below-average exhibits, and while the collection was massive the exhibits were generally of a high standard. Personal highlights were the overhead mesh tunnel for Prevost’s Squirrels, the giant free-flight Rainforest aviary in the Feathers and Scales and of course the incredible White-Bellied Tree Pangolin in Habitat Africa! The Forest. Just a great day all around and it made me even more excited for my visits to the Aquarium and Lincoln Park Zoo the next day.
Interesting review! Just for note since you seemed curious... The Swamp was a renovation of what had been the zoo's original Primate House from 1934 into the 1980's or so; I know it was still open for a while after Tropic World. Similarly, the awkward quality of Reptiles and Birds is because it is a retrofit of Perching Bird House, also opened in 1934; I note this specifically because it was never given a full renovation, and this is why it's lacking in notable species or effective exhibits. Feathers and Scales has undergone short-term renovations, which is why it has the excellent rainforest habitat now. Sounds like you made the most of a subpar visit with so many exhibits closed or missing. Sorry you had to miss out on The Living Coast, big cats, and more but glad you had fun
As Brookfield Zoo is my most visited zoo, I do have to say it is better in the summer. My favorite exhibits are actually the various indoor houses due to how immersive they can be
I wish I could have gone to Brookfield this last week when I was in Chicago. I was planning on doing it but I got rather sick the night before I flew in and spent that day recovering instead. Well I love Chicago, especially due to Shedd and the Field Museum, so I guess more reason to return when it is warmer.
I can definitely believe that Brookfield is better in the summer, but Brookfield’s still easily one of the best zoos to visit in cold weather, as there are just so many great houses to see.
How unfortunate! But yes, Chicago is an amazing city, as are both the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. Did you visit the Lincoln Park Zoo?
My airbnb was actually half a mile from the Lincoln Park Zoo, so I visited twice. Went for about 2 hours one night during zoo lights as I wanted to see how the animals behaved after dark. Then I went to the zoo for 6 hours one day, and really enjoyed myself. I has visited in 2012, but much improvement has been made since then. I felt like I was alone for most of the day which was great. I also visited the art institute although thats not animal related.
Thanks for all the information about some of the old houses at the zoo. The Swamp and Reptiles and Birds buildings are beautiful buildings, so it’s good to know when they were built. I also want to clarify that the closed exhibits didn’t significantly affect my visit, while it was a bit of a loss, all the main exhibits I was excited for (TropicWorld and Habitat Africa! The Forest) were still open and so I still had a very good visit.
