Zoo Review: Quito Zoo in Guayllabamba

By 1997, the Quito Zoo, located in Ecuador's capital city, was feeling cramped.  That year, the zoo took a step that many facilities wish they could take.  It upped-stakes and moved.  Taking up residence in the Guayllabamba district north of the city, the zoo reopened on a beautiful, spacious new campus.  Given the opportunity to rebuild from scratch, the zoo was able to provide its residents with new habitats in keeping with modern zoo practices.

With the exception of lions and (for some reason) ostriches, all of the animals present in the Guayllabamba Zoo are native to Ecuador.  For such a small country, Ecuador contains a tremendous amount of biological and habitat diversity, from the rocky slopes of the Galapagos Islands to the steamy Amazon rainforest.  Included in the zoo's collection are some of the most iconic species that you would encounter in North American zoos, such as Galapagos tortoises, sprawled out in a large muddy yard and jaguars, which prowl a densely planted jungle yard (which, to my surprise, had an open top, a feature that made most US jaguar keepers shudder when I told them).  There are also Andean bears, Brazilian tapirs, pumas, and, of course, Ecuador's national bird, Andean condors, which inhabit a massive flight cage built into the side of a hill with a commanding view of the grounds.

For me, the chief pleasure of visiting a zoo in another country has always been having the chance to see animals that I've never met in an American Zoo.  Guayllabamba proved no disappointment.  Among the species I met for the first time while exploring the zoo were crab-eating raccoons and black-and-chestnut buzzard eagles, as well as brown woolly monkeys (currently only on display at one US zoo).  Ecuador has a major difficulty with the wild pet trade, and many of the animals - especially monkeys and parrots - are individuals which have been taken from the wild and proven to be impossible to rehabilitate and release into the wild.

Even without the pleasure of seeing other novel animals, Guayllabamba is just an excellent zoo.  The enclosures themselves were especially nice, comparing favorably with the best AZA facilities I've seen.  Many of the exhibits were exciting and interactive, different from any I'd seen before.  Among these was the mixed-species walk-through owl aviary.  The reptile collection was spare - apart from the tortoises, most were seen in a single greenhouse, where boas and iguanas lounge in the trees while turtles swim past the patient gazes of basking caiman.  The keepers that I spoke to (in my poor Spaish and their better English) were passionate and knowledgeable.  

There is an unfortunate tendency to look down on zoos of Latin America, Africa, and southern Asia as being inherently run-down and decrepit, full of starving animals in tiny, dirty cages.  Sometimes that's true.  Just as often, however, there are well-run facilities taken care of by devoted staff members.  Often, these facilities, which specialize in native species, provide a rare opportunity for urban and suburban populations to become acquainted with their natural heritage.  This was my experience at the Belize Zoo.  It was also the case with the Guayllabamba Zoo.

Quito Zoo en Guayallabamba