Zoo Review: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Part I

Zoos and aquariums provide an amazing opportunity for visitors to engage with wildlife from around the globe.    As exciting as it can be to learn about foreign lands and exotic animals, it’s also worth reminding visitors that they can find amazing animals far closer to home, sometimes in their own backyards.  Many zoos feature displays themed around native wildlife, from Condor Ridge at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park to the Louisiana Swamp at the Audubon Zoo.

In my opinion, no zoo does a better, more comprehensive job of highlighting local species than the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, located just outside of Tucson, Arizona.

As the name implies, the ASDM isn’t just a zoo.  It’s also a botanical garden, geological museum, and art gallery, perhaps being the best example of what former director of the National Zoo Dr. Theodore Reed called the Biopark Concept.  Founded in 1952, it’s relatively compact 21 acre campus offers a comprehensive exploration of life in the Sonora Desert.  This is especially true as the grounds themselves are part of the Sonora, studded with saguaros and populated by a host of desert wildlife species.  Sometimes it can be difficult to tell where the exhibits end and the wild begins.

After entering the facility, visitors will find themselves between the two major indoor exhibits of the museum.  The first is perhaps the one that visitors would least expect to encounter at a Desert Museum – the Warden Aquarium.  Even in desert habitats (perhaps especially in desert habitats), water is life, and this small aquarium houses fish and marine invertebrates that are found in the rivers that water the Sonora, as well as the Gulf of California, where they empty into the Sea.  Seahorses, pufferfish, and garden eels populate the small tanks here.  Suspended from the ceiling is a life-sized replica of the region’s most endangered species – the vaquita.  Efforts to save this tiny porpoise from extinction have all but failed, and its doom seems at hand.  It’s sobering to think that soon, replicas like this will be all that remain.

I normally don’t make much of a mention of visitor facilities, such as concessions and gift shops, when reviewing zoos, but in this case I’ll make an exception.  Adjacent to the Warden Aquarium is the museum’s gift shop, which includes its bookstore.  If I hadn’t been pressed for time (and money) I could easily have spent hours browsing in there.  There were fascinating books on every aspect of the Sonora Desert, from botany and zoology (of course) to archaeology, anthropology, and history.  I would have needed to buy an extra bookshelf for all of the books I would have liked to have taken home with me.

Across from the aquarium is the Reptile, Invertebrates, and Amphibians Hall, an amazingly complete collection with virtually every species you could expect to find here.  The most celebrated animals here will be the Sonora’s most infamous reptiles, the beautiful but venomous Gila monsters, as well as the representative species of rattlesnakes.  There are also a host of other frogs, toads, lizards, and snakes, along with a wall stacked with display cases of the tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, and other arthropods that call the desert home.  The diversity of the collection is staggering. 

I could easily picture how this room might be dull to a layperson – many of the species (and their habitats) look quite similar to one another, and I’m sure that 90% of visitors would be just as happy with a much smaller, representative collection.  As someone who is not from the region (as is the case for many of the visitors), I really enjoyed the chance to see so many animals that I was never able to see during my short hikes through the region.  I suspect that even many of the long-time residents of the region would be surprised at the diversity, beauty, and yes, sometimes scariness who what scurries or slithers unseen, underfoot.  Perhaps some of them are happier not knowing…

This review is naturally going to be more strongly focused on the zoological aspects of ASDM, but the gemstone and fossil collections are pretty spectacular too.  Visitors can explore a replica of a limestone cave, check out a mine dump, or look at the fossils in the Ancient Arizona gallery.  The later has a special focus on Sonorasaurus, a sauropod (Brontosaurus-like) dinosaur from the late Cretaceous which once called this landscape home.  It’s a great reminder for visitors that the wildlife of a landscape doesn’t just include the species that live there now – Arizona’s zoology extends back millions of years.

Most of the Museum’s largest animals are in the Mountain Woodland trail, a looping path that meanders through several rocky habitats.  The three largest carnivores of the region – American black bear, Mexican gray wolf, and puma – can be seen across moated yards (the puma can also be viewed up close through windows).   Historically the ASDM also featured the remaining large carnivore of the region, the jaguar, but no longer does.  Situated among the carnivores are small habitats tucked into the rockwork, housing North American porcupine and long-eared owls.  At the bottom of trail, a small herd of mule deer grazes in their yard, seemingly blissfully unaware of the presence of their natural predators just a few yards away.

The tour of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum will continue tomorrow!

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum