On Walkabout At: The El Paso Zoo

My little toddler daughter loves going to the zoo so my wife and I on a recent weekend went ahead and visited the El Paso Zoo.  The first time we went to the we didn’t really have high expectations considering some of the great zoos in Australia and Southeast Asia we have visited before.  Though we didn’t expect much we were pleasantly surprised by what a nice little zoo the city of El Paso has.  What really impressed us about the zoo was how friendly the staff was.  Their were many volunteer and regular staff members all around the park providing information about the various animals.  The zoo also has a little train that my daughter had a fun time riding around in as well:

The train takes visitors around the first enclosure at the zoo that houses various African animals:

This area of the zoo was actually quite large and had animals like zebras and giraffes:

In the above picture the Franklin Mountains that run through the center of El Paso can be seen in the background.   The enclosure also had some gazelles:

Fortunately for these gazelles they don’t have to worry about getting eaten by any lions since they all had their own pen that they were housed in where they were all fast asleep:

Of course no Africa exhibit would be complete without some meerkats:

From the Africa exhibit we next went and walkover to a few of the other sections of the park where we were impressed by the amount of room many of the animals had to run around within their enclosures:

However, when we visited the park many of the animals like this javelina, which was in the section of the zoo for American wildlife, was much interested in running around:

So we then walked over to the aquarium where a show was going on that featured this very large sea lion:

If you go to the El Paso Zoo make sure to check out the aquarium because the show with the sea lion is quite good.  Visitors can also walk down to the bottom of the tank and watch the sea lion swim around in the tank:

After watching the sea lion for a while we then walked back over to the Animals of the Americas exhibit and saw the remaining animals there.  One of the animals in the exhibit, the coyote I see quite often in the desert right behind my house:

From there we then went over to see the Animals of Asia exhibit.  In this section there were a few elephants from Southeast Asia:

There were also some Mongolian ponies:

Here is a colorful bird that was in this section of the park as well:

The last thing we checked out on the Animals of Asia section of the park was this orangutan that was quite active and playing around in his pen:

All in all we spent most of the day at the park and ate lunch there as well.  The lunch food at the cafeteria there wasn’t very good but fortunately the rest of the zoo is.  The El Paso Zoo is 35 acres in size and provides a not only a place to view exotic animals but is also one of few green spaces in the city.  So whether you want to take your family to see the various animals at the zoo or just looking for a place to go for a nice walk somewhere that has some greenery the El Paso Zoo is worth checking out.  The zoo is open daily at 9:30 a.m. with the ticket booth closing at 4:00 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays from June 6 to September 6 the ticket booth closes at 5:00 p.m. More information about hours and prices can be found at this link.