That being said, Maryland Zoo is a gem of an institution, one that
is in no way inferior to the National Zoo... just different. For one
thing, it's more spread out and feels wilder than its DC counterpart - there
are no rows of animal houses here, and the exhibits are interspaced with more
trees and rocks. Even without the budget of the Smithsonian to back it
up, many of its exhibits are spacious and attractive, and some are truly
beautiful. The opening display for the zoo's African Journey trail
features a herd of handsome sitatunga antelope - along with hornbills and
cranes - frolicking at the base of a thundering waterfall. The collection
may be smaller than National Zoo, but in many ways it's complimentary.
Many popular animals that you won't find in DC - penguins, polar bears,
giraffes, chimpanzees, rhinos - can be found in Baltimore, and vice versa.
Probably one of the best features of Maryland Zoo is its Children
Zoo - once rated the nation's best, and still easily in the top ten.
Focusing on the wildlife of Maryland (I'm a sucker for native animal
exhibits - every zoo should have one), kids can hop on giant lily pads, explore
a labyrinthine cave (complete with a woolly mammoth skeleton playground), pet
the goats in the barnyard, or watch river otters swim overhead. I'm
pretty sure that every child in central Maryland has been photographed at least
once in the zoo's giant model oriole and heron nests, situated in the Marsh
Aviary exhibit. Many zoos have built bigger or grander kid zoos since,
but Maryland Zoo's children zoo in many ways wrote the original book on
introducing kids to nature in a zoo setting.
Maryland Zoo has had many conservation success stories over the
years. For example, it's renowned for its involvement in the Mountain Gorilla
Veterinary Project and had an active and early role in Project Golden Frog, devoted to saving the Panamanian Golden Frog.
The zoo is perhaps known best of all for its breeding successes with
African penguins. After having shuttered many exhibits a decade ago, the
zoo is finally announcing its first new major exhibit in years - a renovated
home for its penguin colony (see news link at bottom). Hopefully, it will be the first of many
expansions and renovations. The Maryland Zoo may not be the biggest zoo
in the mid-Atlantic, but it is certainly one of the best.
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