Zoo Review: Lehigh Valley Zoo

It took me quite a while to finally make my way to this small, mid-Atlantic zoo - because it was easily one of the more remote facilities I've visited.  Tucked away in the hills of central Pennsylvania, nestled in the bend of a creek, it was not an easy place to find.  Its remoteness, I gathered, was part of the point.  The zoo traces its origins back to 1906, when local industrialist Harry Clay Trexler began buying up farmland - over 1100 acres before he died - to create an eastern game preserve for bison, elk, and deer (mindful of this heritage, the road that the zoo sits on is Game Preserve Road).  The construction of the actual zoo itself didn't begin until the 1970s.

Today, the zoo is roughly divided into two portions.  The largest part by far is the original Trexler Nature Preserve.  Visitors for Jordan Creek in their car and drive off into open ranges grazed by herds of bison and elk.  The remainder of the grounds (about 30 acres) is a small-to-mid-sized, conventional zoo.

The zoo is roughly circular in shape, with a looping path that leads past the exhibits.  The first that most visitors see upon entering is a pool for a small colony of African penguins - it's by no means the worst penguin colony I've seen, but I find it harder and harder to be impressed by small exhibits of small groups like this after having seen much larger colonies at other zoos, which provide a lot more opportunities to observe natural behavior.  The path then leads past a series of wood-and-wire enclosures for a variety of North American raptors, ravens, porcupines, and small carnivores, such as foxes and bobcats.  I was most drawn to this zoo by the chance to observe fishers, North American weasel-relatives that are perhaps most easily described as "tree-otters," which I've only seen once before (and inactive then).  The fisher that I saw here was very active and playful, and I spent a good amount of time watching it.  This section also holds one of the most attractive exhibits in the zoo, a spacious yard for Mexican gray wolves, which can be observed from a viewing blind.

From here, the path leads past a series of open hoofstock yards - nothing to compete with the spaciousness of the bison preserve, but perfectly serviceable.  Aoudad, or barbary sheep, have a mountain in their enclosure, though I was slightly frustrated by the poor viewing opportunities through the fencing.  Zebras, eland, scimitar-horned oryx, ostrich, kangaroos, and emus are also found on this trail.  Also present are another of the zoo's star species, Maasai giraffes, with the obligatory feeding deck.

The trail winds up with a small domestic area, a few more small enclosures of North American species (including rarely-seen ringtails, which I did not see on this visit), a lorikeet aviary, and a pool for North American river otters with stadium-seating.  There is also the small Reptile and Amphibian Discovery (RAD) Center, with a few terrariums of fairly common zoo reptile house species.  With that, you're back at the penguins and the exit.

At the time of my visit, the zoo was finishing up with its new Madagascar habitat, which will feature crowned lemurs and leopard tortoises.  I can't say that I found Lehigh Valley Zoo to exciting, and I don't know if I would repeat the trip out there anytime soon, though if I was again passing through I'd be sure to stop by and see what's changed (I admit that it was a cold day that I passed through on, so I was probably not seeing the place to its best advantage).  For the members of the local community, however - over an hour from Philadelphia, the nearest large zoo - it would definitely be a worthwhile community asset, especially when viewed in association with its unique game preserve.

Lehigh Valley Zoo