Continuing through the Nashville Zoo, we come into one of the newest, and most beautiful of the exhibits, Expedition Peru. This exhibit is perhaps the only flagship habitat for Andean bears in North America. The beautiful South American bears have a gorgeous, hillside yard, which slopes down towards a pool with underwater viewing. This isn't a species that we normally associate with water, but in turns out that Andean bears enjoy splashing around just as much as other bears, and while I wasn't lucky enough to catch a bear in the water during my visit, I have seen some cool footage of them almost completely submerged at eye-level with visitors. The underwater viewing is in a building that also includes an attractive habitat for lizards, turtles, and fish. Outside are yards for southern pudu, the world's smallest deer, as well as guinea pigs swarming over a small village. Ladies, take the opportunity to duck into the nearby bathroom for a private view of the cotton-topped tamarin monkeys. (Gentlemen, you have your own private bathroom viewing experience elsewhere in the zoo with a Boelen's python display).
There are a few somewhat standalone habitats along the trail. There's a fairly standard American alligator exhibit, a yard for cassowary, and a large, pleasantly shaded walkthrough with red kangaroos. Tucked away past the bears is one of the zoo's true standout enclosures, Tiger Crossroads. Visitors can enter an Indonesian longhouse (which contains many good educational displays) for an up-close view of Sumatran tigers through large glass windows, perhaps even catching a demonstration at the training wall. The tigers can also be seen from several vantage points outside.
The meerkat and saddle-billed stork exhibits mentioned yesterday could, depending on how you approached them, potentially be seen as part of a loose African area that wends its way through the zoo. The remainder of said area takes the form of three large savannah yards - one for zebra, ostrich, and antelope, one for Masai giraffe, and the largest (originally for African elephants) now occupied by white rhinos. Next to the rhinos is a small side yard for red river hog.
Farm animals can be seen in the historic Grassmere Farm, which includes a 200 year old historic house. Other attractions in the immediate vicinity are a lorikeet feeding aviary, a carousel, and zipline, the later offering brief but interesting aerial views of the savannah yards. Also nearby is the veterinary center which, like many of the newer zoo hospitals, is equipped with windows that provide behind-the-scenes views as to how the animals are cared for. Nashville maintains a large collection of ambassador animals, so you can also never be sure who you might meet walking around on zoo grounds.
There are parts of Nashville which struck me as a bit over the top with theming, sometimes bordering on the cheesy. I thought the zipline was a bit odd, especially at the literal center of the zoo, and am told that full-size roller coasters will be added as part of a future expansion (though I've also been told how much money the rides bring in, so there is that). The zoo, as I've mentioned, has lots of holdings off-exhibit, including such rarities as palm civets, fanaloka, and martens. They also have an absurd number of giant anteaters (over a dozen), yet amazingly not a single one on exhibit!
Nashville has seen steady growth over the years, but are now slated for massive expansion. One project in the works will be a new habitat by the hospital which will house a large group of Komodo dragons - many zoos keep the world's largest lizard, but few in large numbers, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out. During the colder months, when the lizards are inside, the exhibit will house red-crowned cranes. This is all small peanuts, of course, compared to the massive African expansion that is being planned, which will include, among other things, lions, mandrills, and a boat ride past hippopotamuses. The first phase, under construction now, will be a rock kopje, featuring leopard (Amur subspecies as a stand-in for African), rock hyrax, monkeys, and klipspringer.
All of this, I'm certain, will solidify Nashville as the must-see zoo of the region.
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