Nice Small Zoo
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 8/6/11
First off, a comparison:
Lincoln Park - admission Free fewer animals, more stores 2 hours and 1/2 tank of gas away from South Bend. Train ride that is a tractor that goes in a circle for two minutes.
Brookfield Zoo: $58 for one adult, two children (extra $4.00 a person for the Bus ride around the park and the awful 'Children's Zoo') 2 hours and 1/2 a tank of gas away.
Potawatomie Zoo was $24 for one senior citizen, one adult and two children. The train ride was $2.00 a person. All other attractions were free. Food is expensive, sure, they use the proceeds to help pay for the zoo. All zoos do this. However, you are allowed to bring a picnic and if you can come and go all day (ask, they will stamp your hand). Plus there is a HUGE playground right outside of the Zoo and it's free as well.
I see the most complaints in the reviews about the lack of large animals - like elephants and giraffes, the petting zoo having only goats, the train ride being short and the zoo looking torn up.
I'm assuming since these reviews were from 2009 they were referring to construction that has been finished. The zoo is nice and clean and is not torn up. All exhibits are open and the animals are present and viewable. I'm amazed at how far the zoo has come since the 70's and 80's in terms of cleanliness, animal care and exhibit design.
The children's zoo had goats. Actually four, and the kids could brush them.There was also an alpaca and ponies. I'm not sure what all people expect out of a little petting zoo designed to look like a farm. Of course there will be farm animals. I was at Brookfield zoo yesterday and the Children's zoo was awful. It was run down, there was a goat that the kids could pet, everything else was in a cage.
The animal exhibits are right on par with what you'd expect from a small city zoo - and South Bend is a small city. We cannot afford to house large animals or have large exhibits like Tropic World at Brookfield, nor can we support dolphins. I'm wondering just exactly who these folks are who think that a city of less that 100,000 and shrinking could afford any of these animals? As it is we are lucky we have this zoo and the folks who work so hard every day taking care of these lovely creatures. The exhibits are well laid out, my five-year-old son was able to see the animals without me having to lift him over the barrier to see (another complaint I have about Brookfield - which is a wonderful zoo)
He loved the Red Pandas, the Old World Monkey exhibit, spent at least 20 minutes talking and laughing with the Macaw, he loved the otters - we somehow missed the Zebras and were there for over two hours. Other exhibits they liked were the bats, the alligator, the prairie dogs and the big cats, the wallabies and yes, they liked the Koi pond as well.
The train ride is short. Yes. But it's a train and little kids who like trains will like this. Just for some comparison - Brookfield doesn't have a train and Lincoln Park's train is a tractor that drives in circles for a minute or so. If you want real steam locomotives and a longer ride through the woods - got to the Hesston Steam Museum in Hesston IN.
What I would like to see in the future - bigger enclosure for the snow leopard and more room for the alligator.
In short, which this review wasn't, it IS worth the money - there are over 4000 animals. It is clean and well kept. The animals are easy for even small children to see. It took us two hours and we still didn't see everything. But then again, we stopped and really looked at each exhibit, rather than run around complaining about the lack of elephants or dolphins.