Reviews by riverotter1971

riverotter1971 says "Excellent small city zoo " about Battle Creek's Binder Zoo

riverotter1971 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:22:42 GMT

Battle Creek Binder Zoo

This is one of the best small city zoos I have seen. They have an outstanding African exhibit that features the animals on large tracts of land such as giraffes, zebras, ostriches and other hooved animals. This African exhibit is even bigger than the savanna in the higher ranked Caldwell zoo. This exhibit is by far over half of the zoo itself but the sheer size and type/number of animals featured in this exhibit is enough to place it on my best small city zoos. Time 2 hours.

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riverotter1971 says "Excellent Zoo and rainforest " about Cleveland Zoo

riverotter1971 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:20:55 GMT

Cleveland zoo is a solid choice in a state full of great zoos. They have the best rain forest outside of Omaha, NE. It features lush rainforests, wallfalls and aninmals such as ocelots, fishing cats, porcupines, 3 types of bears, small clawed otters. Defintely the highlighted exhibit and a must see!!! They also have the best beaver exhibit again outside of Omaha, NE. They have above average wolf exhibits, African savanna, and Austrilian. This zoo has size and great exhibits. It comes in at #11 on my list just missing the top 10 only because of the lack of really unique animals that most of the top 10 zoos features but still an outstanding zoo that you cant go wrong visiting. 6-8 hours...

riverotter1971 says "excellent small city zoo " about Toledo Zoo - Toledo, OH

riverotter1971 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:17:34 GMT

One of my top 2 small city zoos along with Tulsa, OK. This zoo is very impressive considering it has to complete with the heavy weights in the state such as Cinncinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. This zoo features an outstanding arctic exhibit that is second to only Detroit and Sea World. It has huge African savanna that you can see from a train. It also features the rare white lions only shown in several other zoos. This zoo is mostly made up of the arctic exhibits and African savanna but those 2 exhibits is enough to made it #2 on my list of best small city zoos coming really close to knocking off #1 Tulsa. If you are ever in Toledo, A RARE MUST SEE INVITATION FROM DR ZOO!!!!...

riverotter1971 says "Oustanding Animal exhibits " about San Diego Animal Park

riverotter1971 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:15:57 GMT

The San Diego Wild Animal Park is a nice drive from San Diego. The park is huge and has a wonderful variety of exhibits. The exhibits are large and all open so you can get a great view.

My favorite exhibit was the Lion exhibit. Large and open, we were able to watch a pride of lions showing off. There was an abandoned jeep in the display which had the back open and the baby lion would play by jumping in and out of it. The male lion was beautiful and we got some amazing pictures of him. We also were lucky enough to see the young cub "playing" with his father by trying to jump on his back.

They have a nice exhibit for the elephants. They had one area that was just baby elephants. They had babies ranging from a few weeks old to a couple of years old. You can watch them eat and also watch the trainers exercise and play with them.

The Wild Animal Park had animal babies everywhere. We were pleasantly surprised as the zoo in our area, St. Louis Zoo, doesn't put their babies out for a very long time.......

riverotter1971 says "best zoo in america " about The San Diego Zoo Website

riverotter1971 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:10:20 GMT

The San Diego Zoo ranks as our families # 1 Zoo.

Normally we spend 5-6 hours in a large zoo and 2-3 hours in the smaller ones. We spent the entire day at the zoo. We were there from the time they opened until they had to run us out. The large variety of animals is amazing. This zoo had animals that we had never heard of.

The exhibits are large, many are open exhibits, and well above average.

My favorite was the Panda Bear Exhibit, also known as The Panda Research Station. We went early and there was not a line to see them. You walk through a winding path and almost feel like you are watching them in the wild. The pandas were walking around and playing and the exhibit is open so you can get up fairly close to them.

The koala exhibit is wonderful. There are several platforms and you can view them up close.

The Polar Bear Plunge is an exhibit you shouldn't miss. There is a large underwater viewing area and the polar bears often swim right up to the glass to view the humans. ...

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