http://www.pdza.org
The primary links on the website are under the titles: Visit, Animals, Events, Education, Conservation, Support Us, and Connect. These links are all easy to navigate and they include information on the conservation projects the zoo supports, as well as options for the viewer to look into their educational programs.
The animals fact sheets are fairly complete for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and sharks, but they are severely lacking when it comes to fish and invertebrates. The fact sheets they have are all very complete with a lot of information on the species.
A map is available for viewing and downloading as a PDF. They also offer a handheld map when you purchase a ticket at the zoo entrance.
Prices:
Adults (13-64) $17
Seniors (65+) $16
Youth (5-12) $13
Tots (3-4) $8.75
Ages 2 and under Free
Discount for Pierce County residents and military
Hours:
Winter hours mostly 9:30am - 4pm
Summer hours mostly 9:30am - 6pm
~ For more detail and specific dates, see website.
Zoo & Aquarium:
Unfortunately the closest bus stop to the zoo entrance is quite a ways away, outside of the sizable parking lot. So not the easiest to access by bus, especially for young children and the elderly.
The entrance itself is not super easily accessible by wheelchair, there is a good ramp down to the entrance, but the gates to get in are those annoying turnstiles. They have a separate gate that an employee has to open to let in people with wheelchairs.
The food amenities mostly consist of one centrally located building. It's not a very big zoo, so this works out just fine as you are never more than a 10 minute walk from it. There are also several "food" stands around the zoo that mostly serve treats like ice cream, popcorn, and cotton candy.
The kids areas of the zoo are clearly marked on the map, and consist of two large playground areas and a carousel near the entrance. Around the playgrounds are small exhibits of mostly reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, but also have the meerkats, lemurs, and wallabies. In one of the kid's areas is a small petting zoo of friendly goats you can feed little pellets to (feed pellets are paid for with quarters). Other animal interactions for children (and in some cases adults too) are camel rides, a sting ray and shark touch tank, a sea life activity room with more touch tanks, scheduled animal interactions taking place at designated areas around the zoo and specified in the list of daily talks/shows, and a budgie feeding aviary where you can buy little seed sticks for $5, or just watch others feed the birds.
One of the playground areas
The sting ray and small sharks touch tank.
The tank had a side were the animals could go to get away from people.
Exhibits:
The exhibits were mostly designed really well, making it easy for people of all ages and ability to get a clear view. A few of them had railings that were a bit high for young kids and people in wheelchairs, but most of those had fencing below you could see through.
All the exhibits had places for the animals to hide/get out of public view, plus an array of plants that represented that particular habitat/region.
The signs for the exhibits were for the most part good. All the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates had signs for each species with at least the scientific name, common name, range, and some facts. The exhibits with the most informational signs were the red wolves and polar bears. Both areas had extensive signs about the species and their conservation.
A small part of the signs about the red wolves.
As I am finding out to be a common theme, the aquarium part of the zoo had the worst signage. It was really quite dreadful. The best signed area was the hallway of tropical exhibits, but a lot of the signs did not cover all the animals in each exhibit, so I have no idea what half the stuff I was photographing is. The worst signed area was the big tropical tank by the sharks, it had no signs whatsoever. None. The shark tank had iPad signs that probably were supposed to show all the species in the tank, but they were both broken when I was there. The area with all the local species was spottily signed at best, with some scientific drawing style identification signs scattered on the walls that had nothing more than the picture, scientific name, and common name. They were so dimly lit that I found most people would not even look at them while walking around. There were no signs whatsoever along the big central tank.
If you think I sound frustrated about this, I am. If aquariums want to say they are being educational then I think they need to make a better effort at providing information on the species they show. Otherwise it's not education, but just pure entertainment.
I was pleasantly surprised by the small number of animals I saw performing stereotyping behaviors. Though as always, it is very hard to determine stereotyping in fish, I think that it may be safe to say they are exhibiting a stereotyping behavior if they are swimming laps or patterns in the tank consistently throughout the day. In which case, I would say that almost a third of the fish on exhibit were showing this behavior. Unfortunately, due to the bad signage I could not write down what species I saw doing it.
The species I did see performing stereotyping behavior that I could write down were one of the two asian small-clawed otters, one out of two asian elephants, three out of five shark species in the big shark tank, and both walruses. I saw possible stereotyping in the harbor seals, who were swimming in similar laps and patterns together as a group, and the Magellanic penguins, four out of eight of them were swimming around and looking underwater but not diving for anything.
There are so many animal keeper talks and shows throughout the day that it is impossible to see them all in one day. I did my best to make it to as many as possible. Every animal keeper talk I went to was very good at being completely educational as well as accessible for all to understand easily. They included time to answer questions, and the keepers I saw happily answered any questions a child or adult had. The elephant keeper even had a couple of props with her to show to the audience during the talk. The polar bear talk finished with giving the bears some enrichment feeding in the pool to get them close to the glass. The information of the talk was great, but unfortunately it is done in a small room and when I was there the crowd at the time was super rude and completely talked over the presenter.
So the talks were great, but other than that I did not see any opportunities to ask questions. No volunteers or staff were walking around or standing by exhibits.
Elephant keeper talk.
There is also a big performance show put on twice a day in the amphitheater. It is mostly silly and geared towards the younger audience, but it still has some educational information and stuff for adults. It also contains a selection of animal ambassadors of species not on general exhibit at the zoo. The animals walk or run across the stage and the keepers show off their natural skills while sharing information about the animal. This is a great photographic opportunity, especially if you are in the first couple of rows. They switch out the animals every show, so it is worth seeing more than once.
The star of the show is a domestic dog, who is adorable and obviously loves doing the whole thing. I never saw his tail stop wagging.
The star of the show.
Good news for photographers in that most of the exhibits had either open air or glass viewing.
The species with open air viewing are the dwarf nigerian goats, red wolves, muskoxen, arctic foxes, tigers, asian small-clawed otters, asian elephants, budgies, Magellanic penguins, harbor seals, sea otters, and marine aviary (common murres, tufted puffins, and horned puffins).
The exhibits with glass viewing are the meerkats, ring-tailed lemurs, polar bears, siamangs & anola, opossum, iguana, clouded leopards, walruses, mole rats, and all the aquarium tanks and the reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate exhibits.
The only exhibit with mesh-only viewing was the wallabies.
Many of the exhibits listed as having clear air viewing also had glass viewing, and many of the exhibits listed as having glass viewing also had mesh viewing.
Overall I enjoyed this zoo & aquarium. The website is easy to navigate and has what I consider to be the most important primary links and information, including good animal fact sheets. The area is accessible for wheelchairs, though the bus stop location is bad. I thought the signs were for the most part quite good (except the aquarium area). The keeper talks were educational and clearly posted for time and location. It was disappointing to not be able to ask docents about animals and exhibits, but the talks always had time for questions. The twice daily show was cute and entertaining as well as funny and a good opportunity to see and photograph species they do not have on regular display. They had a lot of exhibits with open air viewing, and those with glass viewing were often inside to reduce refections and glare.
Last but not least, I did not have to exit through the gift shop!
See you all later when I post the best photos on Google+
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