Zoo Review: Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, Part II

Continuing the tour of the Living Desert...

Tucked away among the extensive gardens of the grounds is the zoo's small Australian area.  Like many zoo displays of this continent, the exhibit is dominated by a wallaby walkthrough, where docents monitor visitor interactions with red-necked wallabies hoping across the trail or retreating to private, out-of-reach sections.  At most zoos, that sums up Australia.  Living Desert does it a bit better; the habitat is framed with smaller pens for other Aussie animals, including short-beaked echidna and yellow-footed rock wallaby, as well as a few habitats of birds and reptiles.  Directly outside the Australian walkabout is a paddock of emus.  A small reptile house is also nearby, featuring North American species, such as Gila monsters and a variety of rattlesnakes.

The Living Desert may have started off as an American collection, but it's Africa that now dominates the grounds.  This is especially made clear with the newest exhibit, located directly at the entrance - Rhino Savanna.  Black rhinos are the stars here, sharing the habitat with pelicans, springbok, and waterbuck.  A nearby cave structure houses a complex tunnel system of naked mole rats.  Located by the rhinos are the other giants of the zoo, giraffes, sharing a yard with ostrich and greater kudu.  Giraffes are a species that, while extremely popular with visitors, I feel often get the short-end of zoo displays - basically a dusty flat yard with an elevated feeding rack, and (increasingly often) a deck for visitors to feed them from.  This exhibit was stellar - it was a sprawling grassy savanna, rolling off seemingly forever into the distance until the mountains in the backdrop, studded with tall trees.  It looked more like giraffe habitat than some of the wild giraffe habitat I've seen.  It also seemed to have more varied terrain than most exhibits I've seen.  There is a tendency to treat giraffes as if they are made of glass and will shatter if kept in anything other than the most carefully managed (read: boring) yards.  Living Desert defies that convention.  The black rhino and giraffe exhibits might be the best for either species that I've ever seen.

Nearby the giraffes is a recreated African village, with habitats for leopard (the Amur subspecies of the Russian Far East serving as an awkward stand-in for the leopards of Africa's deserts) and striped hyena.  Outside of the village are habitats for more African carnivores - African wild dogs, cheetahs, fennec and bat-eared foxes - as well as tortoises, rock hyraxes, warthogs, and a few small aviaries of African birds.  Most of the remainder of the African area is dedicated to African hoofstock, including Grevy's zebras, addra gazelle, and addax; Arabian oryx, an Asian desert species, are also found here.  As, of course, are the quintessential desert species - camels (though if I was in charge of planning a desert zoo, I'd be putting the camels much more front-and-center is a more high-profile exhibit).

The next plan on the agenda for Living Desert is a new habitat for African lions.  Here lies one of the challenges of a desert-themed zoo; with the exception of obligate rainforest species (such as apes) or Arctic species (polar bears), you can call a lot of species deserts.  Penguins?  They can be found on the desert coasts of South America and Africa.  Crocodiles?  Desert oases in the Sahara.  I'm actually a little surprised that Living Desert is completely primate free at this point.  No hamadryas baboons from the Arabian Peninsula?  Ring-tailed lemurs from dry thorn forests of Madagascar?  I wonder if, as Living Desert grows and adds animals, it will risk losing its identity as a desert facility.  The bird and reptile collections could have used more of a boast, also, with a bit strong of a focus on large mammals.  Unlike many AZA zoos and aquariums, Living Desert is privately operated; I wonder if the lack of tax income means that the zoo is a bit more selective about species selection / public appeal than it might otherwise be.

Not that I was worrying about that while I was there.  I absolutely loved the facility.  The exhibits were great - even the "worst" of their habitats compared favorably to many zoos.  The signage was great.  I loved the gardens and emphasis on desert plant life.  And Living Desert's conservation commitments are well-known in the zoo community, not only abroad, but locally, working with endangered native species.  Heck, I saw tons of native wildlife on grounds alone, and that's not even taking into account the remote hiking trails.  I'd would consider this facility a must-see if you're in the region - easily done in association with the nearby Joshua Tree National Park.