The Zoo Review: Zoo Review: Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, Part I

Few American zoos - if any - have experienced some tremendous growth and development as the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. This relatively young establishment represents the merger of the city's previous two zoological collections - the tiny Nashville Zoo and the modest Grassmere Wildlife Park, which housed native species. The former facility took over the grounds of the later, and in the early years of the millennium, the new zoo was born. The grounds are quite sizeable at 188 acres, but only a relatively modest portion have been developed. The zoo has grown steadily, but not unsustainably, and with more of an eye towards quality than quantity. The zoo is missing many of the most charismatic and popular zoo species, many of which are slated for future expansions, and as it is now the zoo is still a half-day experience. The exhibits that it does have, however, are some of the finest I've seen, leading to great anticipation for the projects that the zoo has waiting in the wings.

Upon entry through an complex of African-themed buildings, visitors are greeted by one of the most beautiful exhibits in the zoo, a pair of gibbon islands. These densely-planted islands have towering trees which allow their occupants - siamangs on one, white-handed gibbons on the other - to swing high above the heads of visitors, sometimes disappearing from view entirely, then emerging again amid ear-piercing whoops. Down the path is another habitat for a favorite crowd-pleaser, common in zoos but seldom exhibited as well as here - meerkats. The African desert mongooses have a large, spacious, open habitat with several view points, including bubbles which children (or adults who have some more flexibility than me) can use to pop up in the middle of the scurrying small mammals. The trail then passes a lagoon for trumpeter swans and a marsh for saddle-billed storks.

Next up is Nashville's only major indoor exhibit, Unseen New World. Primarily a reptile and amphibian house, but also featuring invertebrates, fish, birds, and a few small mammals, this building, as the name would suggest, is focused on the wildlife of North and South America, taking visitors of a trek from the Amazon to the Caribbean to the deserts of the southwest to Tennessee. The habitats are considerably well-done, with a great number of rarities seen here, as well as some of the zoo's conservation success stories (Nashville is particularly known for its breeding success with hellbenders and Haitian galliwasps). Visitor favorites are likely to be the Amazon fish tank, the Seba's short-tailed fruit bats, and the gargantuan alligator snapping turtle. Attached to the building is an aviary in a glassed-in atrium, with viewing on two levels of a habitat that features a small but beautiful variety of birds (some of which deviate from the New World theming of the building). As is usually the case in zoo rainforest aviaries, keep an eye peeled for sloths. A lagoon for Chilean flamingos is a short walk outside.

Meandering out of Unseen New World, visitors find themselves on the Bamboo Trail, a loose grouping of exhibits found on a forested path. There's not really much a theme here, but the individual habitats are quite nice. Occupants include Baird's tapir, babirusa, crested porcupine, rhinoceros hornbill, two species of lemur, and puma. Black-handed spider monkeys have an excellent enclosure which, like the gibbon habitat, provides excellent height and lots of climbing opportunities (the monkeys can be seen through viewing windows set at treetop height). A small viewing shelter provides viewing on either side of two of Asia's most beautiful carnivores - red pandas and clouded leopards. Clouded leopards are another species which Nashville is justly famous for. These gorgeous blotched cats have historically proven to be very challenging to breed in zoos, but Nashville has had incredible success with the species. A pair remains on exhibit, with much of the breeding taking place behind-the-scenes in the extensive holding areas elsewhere in the zoo.