Zoo Review: Binder Park Zoo, Part I

When I was a kid, my parents gave me my first copy of Allen Nyhuis's The Zoo Book (later updated and republished as America's Best Zoos).  It was my first introduction to the number and variety of zoos around the country, and it was the first time that I'd heard of many of them.  Even at that young age, there were two facilities among the fifty-plus listed that didn't quite seem like they belonged, based on their size and appeal.  One was West Virginia's Oglebay's Good Zoo.  The other was Michigan's Binder Park Zoo.

Located in Battle Creek (itself better known as the headquarters of Kellogg's, the cereal company), Binder Park Zoo struck me as kind of small and unremarkable to be listed alongside San Diego and the Bronx, and I wondered what inspired Nyhuis to include it.  Of course, that book was published decades ago.  At the time of my first visit, the zoo had more than doubled in size with the addition of an expansive new Wild Africa exhibit.  While still not one of the larger collections I've seen, it still manages to be one of the largest collections in Michigan, with exhibits that range in quality from meh to truly impressive.

Visitors entering the zoo are first left to explore the "old" part of the zoo (Binder Park Zoo was founded in 1977, so "old" is a relative term here), called the East Zoo.  It's a largely wooded campus with various exhibits scattered around them, many of which of the fairly simple wood-and-wire style that you see in many smaller zoos.  Owls, lemurs, and southern ground hornbills occupy these habitats, while kangaroos, wallabies, and cassowaries occupy field habitats.  There are two exhibits of red panda on opposite ends of the grounds.  Both struck me as kind of bland, sufficient for the animals (which themselves I find to be fairly low maintenance), but certainly less impressive than the excellent exhibits I'd seen in Fort Wayne immediately prior to coming here.  The red pandas seem to do well enough, though; elsewhere in the zoo, I was able to see a youngster being reared in a window of the veterinary hospital.

The zoo's single indoor exhibit is the Binda Conservation Discovery Center, which gives off more of the vibe of a nature center at a local park than the reptile and amphibian house of a major zoo.  Many of the enclosures are stand alone tanks with a variety of herps and inverts, ranging from the exotic (such as Panamanian golden frogs) to species of local conservation concern, such as spotted turtles, but almost all fairly small species.  The two largest exhibits house the species that are most likely to be of interest to visitors, reticulated pythons in one, cotton-topped tamarins and Linne's two-toed sloth in the other.  

Most of the grounds had kind of a kid-zoo feel, so not surprisingly there was also a children's zoo with domestic animals, including a goat corral.  This children's zoo was also taken over with large sculptures of dinosaurs, while a small train serviced the area.  Nearby was a  play structure, with a ropes course and ziplines.  The sole other animals in this area were a colony of prairie dogs.

The largest animals in the region are the occupants of a series of carnivore exhibits grouped towards the eastern end of the zoo, which also seem to be some of the newer exhibits.  Visitors can observe the occupants of the Smith Snow Leopard Encounter from a canvas and wood yurt, with the cat's exhibit wrapping around it.  It was an adequate exhibit, and it took me quite a while to spot the well-camouflaged cats, though I do think it would have benefited more from some vertical complexity to maximize the usable space and provide more climbing opportunities.  

Nearby, a bridge meanders across a creek to a small North America region.  There, there are habitats for American black bears, bald eagles, and Canada lynx.  The best exhibit by far was a spacious, wooded habitat for Mexican gray wolves.  As with the snow leopards, it took me a while to find the wolves, and I had to swing by the exhibit a second time to finally see them.  I was well-pleased when I finally did, however.  Among the popular zoos animals, wolves are actually one of the hardest to actually see, and to get to watch a pack flitting through the woods, active but seemingly at east, is always a nice treat.

Tomorrow, we'll continue to the Wild Africa portion of the zoo.

Binder Park Zoo