The Denver Zoo: a great way to spend the day
Published: Apr 2, 2009
Where else but the Denver Zoo could you see a rhinoceros that paints with a brush?
Come say hello to a three-ton artist named Mshindi. Or are king cobras and exotic amur leopards more interesting?
A lot of animals make their home in the zoo's many exhibits and habitats — too many to take in easily in a few hours. Everyone likes to watch the elephants spraying themselves with sand, but what about the scary-looking, 109-foot-long Komodo dragon? Or vampire bats with faces so fiercely ugly that only their mothers could love them?
In 1896, when an orphaned black bear was given to Denver's Mayor Thomas S. McMurry, no one could have imagined this would be the beginning of the Denver Zoo.
McMurry entrusted the rambunctious cub to the keeper of City Park, and over the decades since then the zoo has grown in this central location and has spread out over 80 acres to include more than 3,500 animals of 650 species. Drawing more than 1.6 million visitors each year, it is one of the most popular zoos in the United States.
If you don't mind a little walking, you'll enjoy the various habitats. Bear Mountain, the oldest of these, features giant plaster casts taken of rock outcroppings near Morrison, Colo. —- along with, of course, the bears. You'll see grizzly bears, Asiatic black bears and the strange coati, actually a member of the raccoon family.
The zoo built Predator Ridge as a large series of rock ledges, called kopjes, meant to resemble those of Kenya's Samburu National Game Reserve. Two prides of lions lounge among the terraces, along with spotted hyenas and banded mongooses.
In the Primate Panorama, which opens out over seven acres, monkeys play on vines while gorillas range freely through their part of the habitat. The great apes do pretty much whatever they want — climbing ropes for their daily exercise or taking naps in hammocks.
The zoo remains committed to building state-of-the-art environments that make for healthy animals happy in their urban homes. It also sponsors children's educational programs such as KinderQuest, the overnight Bunk with the Beasts and Summer Safari.
For adults there are outreach programs, Wild Adventures Travel and more. Open 365 days a year, the zoo is a great place not just to see all the mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish, but to learn about them as well.
- by David Zindell, Denver Reporter for HelloMetro
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