Continuing the visit to Como Park Zoo & Conservatory...
The African ungulate yards are complemented by a series of yards for North American hoofstock; not surprisingly, these species are much more at-home year-round in Minnesota's weather, so there are no indoor viewing opportunities available. The largest paddock is given over to the continent's largest land mammal, the American bison. Additional yards house two species that are seen far less often, caribou (reindeer) and Dall's sheep, the Alaskan equivalent of the more-commonly seen bighorn. An additional smaller yard (smaller in comparison to the hoofstock yards, but still very spacious) houses arctic foxes. The ungulate exhibits are nice, but viewing is a bit more difficult than it is for the African ungulates, with fencing in the way that makes photography of species a bit more challenging.
Nearby are the likely stars of the Como Park Zoo, the polar bears. For such a small zoo, this facility does have one of the better polar bear exhibits I've seen - not the best or second best, but quite respectable. It has natural substrates, including grass, which I feel is lacking from many exhibits as architects focus more on creating the "idea" of the arctic rather than a nice habitat. There are two habitats seen from a number of vantage points, including a hidden cave view. Both can be seen simultaneously from yet another education building, which also offers underwater viewing. This building also provides a behind-the-scenes view of the bear holding area, including a training wall. I don't recall ever being at a zoo exhibit for polar bears with a BTS component, so I appreciated the novelty. The building also houses a number of educational displays about life in the arctic and climate change.
Out back is another building, the Aquatic Animal House. This might strike me as the weak link in the zoo - it tries cobbling together too much without doing a great job of anything. Indoor exhibits house African penguins and tufted puffins, as well as indoor exhibits for seals (Como has three species of pinniped - California sea lion, gray seal, and harbor seal), and a few fish tanks which seem out of place. The building would be better served, I feel, by phasing either penguin or puffin out - and my vote would be to keep the puffins (less commonly kept, and it's hard to be impressed by this penguin colony if you've seen larger African penguin colonies in outdoor exhibits) - to build a larger colony in a larger exhibit and try to come up with some better theming.
The pinnipeds, at least, have much more expansive and attractive digs outside, especially the sea lions, which are the occupants of the brand new Como Harbor. This spacious habitat is the new home to the Sparky the Seal Show, a classic feature of the zoo from years past (yes, the animals in question are seals, not sea lions). Visitors have stadium-like seating to few training demonstrations, or they can view the sea lions from above or below water, cruising past underwater windows.
A final animal feature of the zoo is the rainforest. This is a fairly boilerplate building of tropical plants with some free-flying passerine birds, sloths, and a few aquarium tanks of green anaconda, turtles, the usual suspects of large Amazon River fish, and some small terrariums of frogs and invertebrates (one exhibit consisted of a bucket with a glass front and housed a tarantula - it was cool thematically, apparently featuring a spider that had just been "collected" by a researcher, but I question whether it was the best habitat for the animal). The bird collection has a few rarities, but they are very hard to spot, and with the crowds and the COVID risk (this was several months ago), I didn't want too linger too long inside to wait them out. I could see it potentially being more exciting of an exhibit if you had the time to really stay and appreciate it, but as a push-through experience, it was one of the more forgettable rainforest displays I'd seen (though one of the better planted ones).
Speaking of plants, I would be remiss if I neglected the "conservatory" part of the zoo's name. The rainforest is attached to the main conservatory, which visitors can meander through on their way out of the zoo. I'm very limited in my botanical knowledge, so my appreciation of greenhouses, conservatories, and botanical gardens often comes from more of an aesthetic viewpoint. On that score, I loved the displays. Again, as was the case with the other indoor components of the facility, I was reluctant to linger with crowds for too long, so my impressions were somewhat fleeting. That being said, if you are visiting, you should definitely take the time to appreciate this attraction, especially if you're more into plants and gardens than I am.
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory was a "plus one" I tacked on to a trip that was mostly geared towards seeing the Minnesota Zoo, and I hadn't gone into it with too high of expectations - there were no "must see" exhibits or animals that would have called me to take a separate trip for its own sake. To that end, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It featured a lot of megafauna - lions, gorillas, giraffes, zebras, polar bears - that Minnesota Zoo lacks, in exhibits that were almost uniformly quite nice (the bird and reptile collections, on the other hand, were somewhat frustratingly lacking). I appreciated the many little education-centers tucked away across the grounds, which I feel have great value as classrooms, all while making the zoo more of a year-round attraction. I would say that the people of the twin cities are lucky in having two great, yet very different, zoos that they have in their backyards.
No comments:
Post a Comment