San Diego Zoo, USA: detailed description, address and photo. Types of animals, excursions to the zoo, reviews of tourists.
 |
| San Diego Zoo |
This zoo is incredibly popular - and deservedly so. The San Diego Zoo is home to over 3,700 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies. The organization that founded the zoo, San Diego Zoo Global, is the largest zoological society in the world, with a total of over half a million members. And the San Diego Zoo pioneered a conceptually new organization of open-air zoos, without cages to admire animals in their natural habitat.
This is one of the few zoos in the world where a giant panda lives. And in 2013, having adopted the experience of their Australian colleagues, a new Coalapornia branch was opened at the zoo - it is clear who lives there.
 |
| San Diego Zoo |
The current zoo grew out of an exhibit of exotic animals that was abandoned after the 1915 Panama-California exhibition ended. The plot of land was allocated to the zoo for permanent use in 1921, and a year later the animals moved here. The main ideologist of the creation of the park, Dr. Harry Wedgford, from the very beginning wanted to organize a zoo without cages, and the first zone of the zoo, free of fences (by the way, lions lived there), was opened immediately, in 1922.
The San Diego Zoo pioneered a conceptually new organization of open-air zoos, without cages.
You can explore the zoo with an organized excursion that covers approximately 3/4 of the entire territory. The expositions are organized according to the principle of habitat, so that in one you can see several different animals that inhabit a particular zone in natural nature. The zones presented at the zoo are incredibly diverse: from African rain forests to arctic taiga and tundra. It is also home to some of the world's largest poultry houses, where birds can fly freely.
 |
| San Diego Zoo |
There is no need to worry about security: many areas that appear to be open are actually fenced off with invisible wire.
Among the exhibitions opened in the zoo are such as Monkey Trails, where monkeys and other animals from the rain forests of Asia and Africa are collected; poultry houses with tropical and other birds; "Panda Track" with bamboo thickets and several species of pandas living in them (not only giant ones); a pool of polar bears (except for bears, you can see polar foxes, wolves, cougar here); "Ituri Forest", which is a copy of the real African; "Odyssey of Elephants"; Gorilla Tropics, Absolute Primates (orangutans and siamangs); Bonobos zone of pygmy chimpanzees; a forest of incredibly interesting Malay bears; "Tiger River" with Malay tigers; the zone of snow leopards and, finally, the very same "Coalapornia", where wombats, wallabies and kookaburras live along with koalas, as well as rare Tasmanian devils, which can be seen in only two zoos in the USA.
 |
| San Diego Zoo |
Over the entire long history of the zoo, animals have escaped from it several times. The most famous escapes were made by an orangutan from Borneo named Ken Allen, who was even nicknamed "the hairy Houdini" for the ingenuity with which he got out into the wild.
Over the years, the zoo has received numerous awards, including from the American and International Associations of Zoos and Aquariums. The latter was awarded by the AZA to the Zoo in 2014 for its contribution to international work on the conservation of rare species.
A special charm of the zoo is the Skyfari gondola lift, which gives visitors the opportunity to view the area from above.
 |
| San Diego Zoo |
In 2011, the San Diego Zoo became one of only four in the United States to host pandas. Not only that, the first two giant pandas in US history that were born and lived to adulthood were born here, in 1999 and 2003.
In addition to a huge variety of animals and birds, the zoo has an impressive collection of plants, including rare ones, and an arboretum is open. For example, in the zoo, you can see 40 varieties of bamboo, planted for pandas, and 18 species of eucalyptus, which koalas feed on.
Practical information
Address: The zoo is located in Balboa Park, at 2920 Zoo Drive. This is the western half of the park.