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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Zoo Review: Reid Park Zoo, Part I

Not many American cities can boast of two zoos; Tucson, Arizona is one of the few that can.    With so much emphasis placed on its world famous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, it isn’t surprising that the more conventional city zoo is often overlooked.  While it’s not as unique as the Desert Museum, nor as massive as the Phoenix Zoo (about an hour and a half to the north), the Reid Park Zoo is certainly still worth a visit.  It features an impressive collection of animals in attractive, naturalistic habitats, with more expansion and development coming in the near future.
At 24 acres, the zoo is of a relatively modest size, especially compared to Phoenix.  Most of the animals can be seen along one of three trails.  Upon entering the zoo, most visitors will take a looping path to their right, leading onto the Tropical Trail, which features animals from Latin America.  The first habitat displays Andean bears.   Andean bears are one of the most arboreal bear species, and their habitat is well provisioned with trees and climbing structures, as well as a small pool.  Continuing up from the bears, there is a series of yards, blending together as one landscape, for some of South America’s largest land animals.  Capybara, giant anteater (the zoo’s logo), Galapagos tortoise, and greater rhea are found here, as well as Baird’s tapirs.  The tapir habitat includes a pool with underwater viewing, and given how warm Arizona mid-days can be, it’s not unusual to see the pig-like mammals bobbing in the water at eye-level with visitors.  These exhibits curl around a walk-through aviary, one of two in the zoo, that houses South American birds, including scarlet ibis and blue-crowned motmot.  Exiting the aviary, visitors may encounter jaguar, as well as a pool of giant pacu fish. 

Rounding out the Tropical Trail is one of the zoo’s newest habitats, the Temple of Tiny Monkeys.  In an indoor-outdoor habitat, a troop of squirrel monkeys swarms through the branches.  The squirrel monkeys are an interesting addition to the trail because, apart from the aviary, they are one of the only really “rainforest” additions to the trail.  Most of the other species featured on the trail are grassland, scrub, or mountain species, which makes sense when you think of the climate that the zoo is working with and the benefits of being conservative with water.  It’s a position that the zoo seems to be possibly rethinking in regards to some of its planned future expansions, but more on that later.  I sort of wish that the zoo had decided to more boldly go all-in on the non-rainforest South America.  Many visitors are under the impression that South America and the Amazon Rainforest are interchangeable, and it would be great to explore some of the many diverse other ecosystems that make up the continent, such as the Pampas and the Chaco (both arid regions that look very similar to Arizona).
Expedition Tanzania, the sprawling African area, takes up the majority of the land at the Reid Park Zoo.  The trail starts with three very different African carnivores.  Spotted-necked otters, something of a rarity in American zoos, splash about in their pool, while meerkats stand sentry in a desert yard next door (I would like to point out at this time that meerkats, though African, live thousands of miles away from Tanzania – as do some of the other African animals featured in this trail.  I sometimes get exasperated by the lackadaisical approach that zoos take towards geography with their exhibits).  Across the path is a habitat for lions.  The lion exhibit, like the jaguar exhibit on Tropical Trail, didn’t particularly wow me.  It was by no means a terrible one. I just felt that in terms of space, complexity, and viewing opportunities, there was the potential to do something better.  But perhaps that is something that the zoo is considering as part of its master plan.

Some of Africa’s largest herbivores can be found here as well.  Giraffes occupy a spacious yard, equipped with a feeding station.  Across the path, white rhinoceroses share a habitat with tiny Speke’s gazelles, while Grevy’s zebras and ostriches share a yard next door.
The stars of Expedition Tanzania are the African elephants, several of which can be seen in a sprawling, pool-fronted yard.  The elephants of Reid Park are, in their own way, a triumph of the zoo over animal rights activism (or, you could prefer to view it as, a victory for animal welfare).  In 2006, there was a small but vocal campaign called "Save Tucson Elephants", which was lobbying the city to send the zoo’s two elephants to a sanctuary.  Instead, the city, emboldened by public support for the zoo, decided to double-down on elephants.  The result was a spacious new habitat and a big, beautiful barn, capable of housing a good-sized herd of elephants, including a magnificent bull.   I was given the opportunity to explore the barn, and while I can’t post any pictures here, I will say that I wish that Reid Park had followed the lead of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Cleveland MetroparksZoo, and many other facilities in making their new barn at least partially accessible to the public – I think visitors really do benefit from gaining an understanding as to how much work goes into keeping zoo elephants happy and healthy.  Back outside, the public area includes a training wall for the elephants, allowing keepers to safely perform husbandry demonstrations via protected contact, as well as several cool interactive educational devices (including a life-sized elephant backside, which kids show a predictable – if weird - fondness for spanking).  


I like to think that this exhibit is a reminder to government and non-profit administrators that the answer for criticism from zoo folks isn’t to drop a species or an exhibit just because of public disapproval. (especially in regards to elephants).  Sometimes, it pays to face your critics and renew your commitment to your animals.  I’m not saying that phasing a species out of a collection because of welfare concerns is never the right decision – elephants and marine mammals both require tremendous commitment in terms of resources and space, and not every facility is capable of meeting those challenges.  Sometimes, however, it is best to stick with it, and this was one of those cases.  The Reid Park Zoo habitat easily ranks as one of the best elephant exhibits I’ve ever seen, and the improvement for the elephants is obvious too.  In 2014, a female calf was born here, the first African elephant ever born in Arizona.
We'll continue the review of Reid Park Zoo tomorrow!

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