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Date opened | 1889 |
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Location | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
Coordinates | 33°43′57″N 84°22′11″W / 33.73250°N 84.36972°WCoordinates: 33°43′57″N 84°22′11″W / 33.73250°N 84.36972°W |
Land area | 40 acres (16 ha) |
No. of animals | 1,500 |
No. of species | 220 |
Memberships | AZA[1] |
Website | www |
Zoo Atlanta (sometimes referred as Atlanta Zoo) is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited zoological park in Atlanta, Georgia. The current president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta is Raymond B. King. The Atlanta zoo suffered neglect and by 1984, was ranked among the ten worst zoos in the United States. Systematic reform by 2000 put it on the list of the ten best.[2]
History
Zoo Atlanta was founded in 1889, when businessman George V. Gress purchased a bankrupt traveling circus and donated the animals to the city of Atlanta. City leaders opted to house the collection in Grant Park, which remains the zoo's present location. Original residents of the zoo included a black bear, a raccoon, a jaguar, a hyena, a gazelle, a Mexican hog, lionesses, monkeys, and camels.[3] The zoo's collection expanded in the 1930s with the personal donation of a private menagerie owned by Asa G. Candler, Jr.[4]
The 1950s and 1960s were decades of renovation and construction at the zoo, but by the early 1970s, many of its exhibits and facilities were outdated and showing signs of disrepair. In 1970, a small group of concerned citizens founded the Atlanta Zoological Society in hopes of raising funds and awareness for the institution.
Following a period of decline in the mid-1980s, the zoo was privatized in 1985 with the creation of a nonprofit organization, Atlanta Fulton-County Zoo Inc., and was renamed Zoo Atlanta that same year. A 20-year period of aggressive restoration followed, marked by several high-profile exhibit openings, including The Ford African Rain Forest, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A pair of giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, made their debut at Zoo Atlanta in 1999.[5]
Habitats
The Ford African Rain Forest
Twenty-one western lowland gorillas have been born at the zoo since the opening of The Ford African Rain Forest in 1988. Kali and Kazi, a rare set of twins, were born at Zoo Atlanta on October 31, 2005.[6]
Zoo Atlanta also remains home to offspring of its best-known gorilla, Willie B. (ca. 1959–2000). The zoo is also home to six of Willie B.'s grandchildren: Macy B (2005) and Merry Leigh (2011) and Mijadala (2016), born to Kudzoo; Gunther (2006) and Anaka (2013), born to Sukari; Andi (2013) and Floyd (2019), born to Lulu.[citation needed]
Ozzie resided here from 1988 to 2022.[7][8]
The Living Treehouse is an extension of The Ford African Rain Forest completed in 2004. The exhibit houses an aviary of African birds, as well as black-and-white ruffed lemurs and ring-tailed lemurs, with adjacent habitats for Angolan colobus monkeys, drills, Schmidt's guenons, and Wolf's guenons. In 2017, Zoo Atlanta introduced two crowned lemurs.
Trader's Alley and Complex Carnivores
Opened in 2010, Trader's Alley: Wildlife's Fading Footprints is focused on species impacted by the international wildlife trade. The exhibit introduced Malayan sun bears and raccoon dogs to the collection.[9] Opened in 2011, an adjacent series of exhibits, Complex Carnivores, introduced bush dogs, binturong, and fossa.[10]
African Savanna
Zoo Atlanta's African Savanna, opened in 1989 as African Plains and reopened and renamed in 2019, houses wildlife native to the grasslands and desert of Africa, including lions, African bush elephants, kori bustards, meerkats, and warthogs. Another savanna landscape is home to reticulated giraffe, plains zebras, and ostriches. A giraffe feeding experience opened in 2012. The former elephant habitat is now an exhibit for a new species of animal, the southern white rhinoceros.[11] Mumbles, a male white rhino has come to Zoo Atlanta from the Houston Zoo on May 20, 2020.
Giant pandas
Zoo Atlanta is one of three institutions in the U.S. currently housing giant pandas. Lun Lun (female) and Yang Yang (male) arrived in Atlanta as juveniles in 1999 and reside at the zoo on loan from China. The pair's first cub, male Mei Lan, was born on September 6, 2006. A second cub, male Xi Lan, was born August 30, 2008. Female Po was born November 3, 2010. Po's name was announced by actor Jack Black in 2011; Po was named after Black's character in the DreamWorks films Kung Fu Panda.[12] A fourth and a fifth cub, both female,[13] born July 15, 2013, were the first twin pandas to be born in the U.S. since 1987.[14] Their names were announced on ABC's Good Morning America on October 23, 2013; 100 days after their birth, which is a Chinese tradition. The names are Mei Lun and Mei Huan.[15] As of October 2015, Mei Lan, Xi Lan, Po, Mei Lun, and Mei Huan reside at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.[16]
A sixth and seventh cub, both female, were born September 3, 2016. Their names were announced on their 100th day of life: Ya Lun and Xi Lun. Like their older siblings, the twins will return to China once they are fully grown and weaned, likely between 3–5 years of age.
Asian Forest
The Asian Forest is set in the forests of Asia and houses giant otters, sun bears, Komodo dragons, Sumatran tigers, giant pandas, tanukis, and red pandas, as well as Bornean orangutans and Sumatran orangutans.
The Orangutan Learning Tree Project, launched at Zoo Atlanta in 2007, utilizes in-habitat touch screen technology to allow orangutans to engage in computer puzzles, games and problem-solving exercises while guests observe their activities on a linked monitor.[17]
Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian Reptile and Experience
The Zoo Atlanta herpetology department manages more than 450 reptiles and amphibians representing over 100 species, though because of the size of the World of Reptiles exhibit building, not all of these animals can currently be displayed. The zoo is the only zoological institution to successfully breed Arakan forest turtles, a critically endangered species harvested nearly to extinction for food and traditional medicine. A rare Guatemalan beaded lizard hatched at Zoo Atlanta in March 2012.
In 2009, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums noted that "the facility is a major concern primarily because of age." The World of Reptiles once housed critically endangered gharial (a species of crocodile from India), but because the aging facility could not maintain adequate heat, they were sent to other zoos.
Construction began in 2013 on Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian and Reptile Experience, replaced the World of Reptiles. The exhibit opened in 2015.[18]
Exhibited reptiles include West African slender-snouted crocodile, Timor python, emerald tree monitor, prehensile-tailed skink, green anaconda, blood python, reticulated python, yellow-blotched map turtle, Burmese star tortoise, pancake tortoise, Mexican box turtle, bird snake, eyelash viper, Eastern Pilbara spiny-tailed skink, Centralian rough knob-tailed gecko Papuan python, boa constrictor, Amazon Basin emerald tree boa, eastern indigo snake, green tree python, Sri Lankan pit viper, Amazon tree boa, saw-shelled turtle, plumed basilisk, alligator snapping turtle, Gaboon viper, Louisiana pinesnake, northern caiman lizard, diamondback terrapin, Cuban rock iguana, Jamaican boa, red spitting cobra, Lau banded iguana, Boelen's python, timber rattlesnake, pine snake, Mexican cantil, speckled rattlesnake, banded rock rattlesnake, Guatemalan beaded lizard, black beaded lizard, corn snake and eastern diamondback rattlesnake. Amphibians like the green and black poison dart frog, strawberry poison-dart frog, red-eyed tree frog, Panamanian golden frog, black-legged poison frog, evergreen toad, lemur leaf frog, white-spotted glass frog, dyeing poison dart frog and Titicaca water frog.[19]
Outback Station Children’s Zoo
Zoo Atlanta's Outback Station houses Australian wildlife, including red kangaroos, Major Mitchell's cockatoos, kookaburra and a double-watted cassowary. The petting zoo is home to Saanen goats, Oberhasli goats, Boer goats, Southdown babydoll sheep, Gulf Coast sheep, Nigerian dwarf goats, and two kunekune pigs.
Boundless Budgies: A Parakeet Adventure
Opened in April 2009, Boundless Budgies houses free-flying parakeets which guests are permitted to hand-feed. This exhibit closed permanently in November 2016 to allow for development of the newly opened African Savannah project.[20]
Conservation
Zoo Atlanta is a participant in the AZA Species Survival Plan for the following programs:
- Aruba Island rattlesnake
- Bali mynah
- Black rhino
- Bongo
- Burmese star tortoise
- Clouded leopard
- African elephant
- Giant panda
- Gorilla
- Golden lion tamarin
- Guenon
- Komodo dragon
- Kori bustard
- Lemur
- Lion
- Orangutan
- Otter
- Radiated tortoise
- Red panda
- Sumatran tiger
Zoo Atlanta also participates in several international conservation initiatives, among them the Asian Turtle Crisis and Global Amphibian Decline. Staff members from Zoo Atlanta and the Atlanta Botanical Garden have established captive assurance colonies of Panamanian frogs threatened by the spread of chytrid fungus. (Chytrid is the cause of the infectious amphibian disease chytridiomycosis.) [21]
Leadership
Dr. Terry Maple is Zoo Director Emeritus of Zoo Atlanta. In 1985, he assumed management responsibility for zoo operations of the Atlanta-Fulton County Zoo, Inc, which was privatized and rebranded as Zoo Atlanta.[22]
Duane Rumbaugh, a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, was a longtime advisor and researcher on animal behavior and welfare.[23]
Gallery
References
- ^ "Currently Accredited Zoos and Aquariums". aza.org. AZA. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
- ^ Francis Desiderio, "Raising the Bars: The Transformation of Atlanta’s Zoo, 1889-2000." Atlanta History 18.4 (2000): 8-64.
- ^ "A Circus at Auction". Atlanta Evening Journal. March 28, 1889.
- ^ Desiderio, Francis (2000). "Raising the Bars: The Transformation of Atlanta's Zoo, 1889-2000". Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South. 43 (4): 7–43.
- ^ Pandas Make Themselves at Home in Atlanta Zoo
- ^ Gorilla has twins at Atlanta Zoo
- ^ Stump, Scott (April 24, 2013). "World's oldest male gorilla turns 52". TODAY. Retrieved 2022-01-26.
- ^ Jackson, Amanda (2022-01-26). "Ozzie, the world's oldest male gorilla, has died at Zoo Atlanta". CNN. Retrieved 2022-01-26.
- ^ Sun bears debut, tigers return to Zoo Atlanta's new exhibit
- ^ Complex Carnivores opens at Zoo Atlanta
- ^ Emerson, Bo; Journal-Constitution, The Atlanta. "Zoo Atlanta's African Savanna habitat nears completion". ajc. Retrieved 2020-09-10.
- ^ Jack Black helps name Atlanta Zoo's baby panda
- ^ Update on giant pandas Po, Mei Lun and Mei Huan
- ^ Twin giant panda cubs at Zoo Atlanta appear healthy, doing well
- ^ "Twin Panda Cubs' Names Revealed at Zoo Atlanta's 100-Day Celebration". ABC News. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
- ^ Giant pandas to leave Zoo Atlanta for China
- ^ Orangutan Learning Tree opens at Zoo Atlanta
- ^ $18M reptile house 'biggest thing' at Zoo since panda arrival
- ^ "SSS Map". zooatlanta.org.
- ^ New aviary opens at Zoo Atlanta Archived September 11, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ New guidelines intended to guard amphibians against deadly fungus
- ^ "Turnaround-From Worst to World Class". Archived from the original on 2016-03-24.
- ^ Terry Maple, and Bonnie Perdue, "Duane Rumbaugh’s Influence on the Science and Practice of Animal Welfare." International Journal of Comparative Psychology 31 (2018) pp 31-44. online.
Further reading
- Francis Desiderio, "Raising the Bars: The Transformation of Atlanta’s Zoo, 1889-2000." Atlanta History 18.4 (2000): 8-64.
External links
- Official website
- Zoo Atlanta on zooinstitutes.com