Chicago - Lincoln Park Zoo

http://www.lpzoo.org/

Lincoln Park in itself is kind of amazing, with all that there is available, and having a free zoo available 365 days a year is a part of that.

I like to consider the navigability of zoos in terms of whether you can see everything without a lot of backtracking, and I am not sure whether I can be a fair judge of that in this case, because the zoo was under construction. I know that there were parts that we missed by virtue of going one way instead of the other, but I am not sure if that is a normal issue, or just for the construction.

By the same token, many animals seemed to be missing. I am a big believer in giving the animals some ability for privacy, but that should be balanced with being able to go and see animals. Again, I am not sure how much of that was the construction, because maybe some animals had been moved to prevent stress from noise.

My point is that there was a fair amount of frustration with trying to see everything, and yet I know that this is not necessarily a fair evaluation. The real test will be what the zoo is like when the renovation is done, and even for our time there, there was a lot of good.

Because the zoo is free, it can be integrated with the park more. The farm area is actually a little separate, and at one point we found ourselves on a bridge with bicyclists. I ended up going into the Conservatory first, but it would have been easy to spend time at the zoo, stop and visit the conservatory, and then go back into the zoo. Those connections give a feeling that is relaxed but also vibrant.

There were also some good animals that we don't usually get to see. The sand cat was one of my favorite animals at the Washington Park Zoo's night country, and after they renovated it I never saw one again. Lincoln Park had a sand cat, and a fennec fox. They had red pandas.

I also thought they had the best camel habitats. Usually when we see camels, they give rides, and maybe it is just that they are in the staging areas, but here they were in nice grassy paddocks, and I saw one roll over on his side and kick his heels like a dog. The adorableness nearly slew me.

I also felt that they did a good job of drawing connections between the native habitats and Chicago, with maps, comparisons of temperature and other weather phenomena, and conservation issues. A modern zoo may be taking the animals out of nature, but should not be losing the connection to the nature; it should be heightening it. I think they did that well.

I don't know that I will be making it back any time soon to see how the renovations went, but I would like to give it another shot.