Sedgwick County Zoo
The Sedgwick County Zoo is an AZA-accredited wildlife park and major attraction in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Founded in 1971 with the help of the Sedgwick County Zoological Society, the zoo has quickly become recognized both nationally and internationally for its support of conservation programs and successful breeding of rare and endangered species. Having over 3,000 animals of nearly 400 species, the zoo has slowly increased its visitors and now ranks as the number one outdoor tourist attraction in the state.[4]
Date opened | 1971[1] |
---|---|
Location | Wichita, Kansas, US |
Coordinates | 37.7158°N 97.4104°W |
Land area | 247 acres (100 ha)[2] |
No. of animals | 3,000 |
No. of species | 400 |
Annual visitors | 654,494 (2009)[1] |
Memberships | AZA[3] |
Website | scz |
Exhibits
Downing Gorilla Forest
Downing Gorilla Forest starts out in a recreation of a small Congo village with exhibits for De Brazza's monkey, colobus monkey, pink-backed pelican, and white pelican. Across a bridge is an exhibit for saddle-billed stork, as well as one for black crowned crane and okapi. The main attraction is a large gorilla exhibit. They can be viewed in their indoor home, outside through large viewing windows or across a moat.
Pride of the Plains
A path winds around exhibits of lions, red river hogs, and two exhibits of meerkats. Each exhibit has several views from all sides. The whole area has a kopje theme with giant boulders. At the end is an exhibit for African painted dogs.
Penguin Cove
Opened in 2007, Penguin Cove is the zoo's first marine exhibit, and home to a colony of Humboldt penguins. The $1.5 million exhibit features a 42,000-US-gallon (159,000 l) pool with rocky areas and coves on each side.[5]
African Veldt
This exhibit features bonteboks, reticulated giraffes, African bush elephants, hippos, and eastern black rhinos. On 11 March 2016, six African elephants arrived at the zoo from Swaziland to escape a drought.[6]
A male African elephant, Ajani, from Birmingham Zoo, joined the six female elephants for breeding purposes in May 2018.[7]
Tiger Trek
This $3 million Asian themed naturalistic exhibit was opened in 2009, and houses Amur tigers, Malayan tigers, red pandas, bar-headed geese, brow-antlered deer, and more.
List of animals
- Entrance
- Children's Farm
- African goose
- American Cream Draft horse
- Arapawa goat
- Asiatic water buffalo
- Bourbon Red turkey
- Cayuga duck
- Domestic yak
- Domestic zebu
- Dromedary camel
- Gloucestershire Old Spot pig
- Guinea hog
- Heritage Shorthorn cow
- Highland cow
- Honeybee
- Indian runner duck
- Karakul sheep
- Magpie duck
- Milking Devon cow
- Miniature donkey
- Mule
- Nankin Bantam chicken
- Navajo-Churro sheep
- Nigerian dwarf goat
- Pilgrim goose
- Pineywoods cow
- Poitou donkey
- Sebastopol goose
- Silkie Bantam chicken
- Texas longhorn cow
- Tunis sheep
- Vietnamese pot-bellied pig
- Watusi cow
- White Park cow
- Cessna Penguin Cove
- Amphibians and reptiles
- Aldabra giant tortoise
- Black crappie
- Green sunfish
- Spiny softshell turtle
- Longnose gar
- Pascagoula map turtle
- Razor-backed musk turtle
- River cooter
- Yellow-blotched map turtle
- Chinese alligator
- Tentacled snake
- Puff-faced water snake
- Rio Cauca caecilian
- Kaup's caecilian
- Green and black poison dart frog
- Eyelash palm viper
- Chinese crocodile lizard
- Golden mantella
- Mandarin rat snake
- Black-breasted leaf turtle
- Okinawa newt
- Rubber boa
- Sheltopusik
- European green toad
- Hellbender
- Spotted turtle
- Bog turtle
- King cobra
- Egyptian tortoise
- Berber skink
- Sonoran spiny-tailed iguana
- Sonoran desert toad
- Gila monster
- Chuckwalla
- Muller's clawed frog
- Carrot-tail viper gecko
- Kaiser's spotted newt
- Southwestern speckled rattlesnake
- Black mamba
- Western Gaboon viper
- Tropics
- Giant African millipede
- Asian forest scorpion
- Brazilian salmon birdeater tarantula
- Giant cave roach
- Gooty sapphire ornamental tarantula
- Sabah thorny stick insect
- African collared dove
- Baikal teal
- Beautiful fruit-dove
- Black crake
- Black-naped fruit dove
- Blue-bellied roller
- Blue-grey tanager
- Bruce's green pigeon
- Chinese hwamei
- Cinereous finch
- Collared finch-billed bulbul
- Common bulbul
- Crested coua
- Crested quail dove
- Crested wood partridge
- Edward's pheasant
- Emerald starling
- Fairy-bluebird
- Golden-breasted starling
- Golden-headed quetzal
- Great blue turaco
- Green-naped pheasant pigeon
- Grosbeak starling
- Indian flying fox
- Luzon bleeding-heart dove
- Mandarin duck
- Marbled teal
- Nicobar pigeon
- Oriole warbler
- Red-capped cardinal
- Red-crested turaco
- Regent parrot
- Ringed teal
- Scarlet-faced liocichla
- Snowy-headed robin chat
- Spangled cotinga
- Speckled mousebird
- Sunbittern
- Taiwan yuhina
- Tambourine dove
- Violet-backed starling
- White-breasted woodswallow
- Wonga pigeon
- Plecostomus
- Golden white-eye
- Mariana fruit dove
- Guam kingfisher
- Guam rail
- Sunda wrinkled hornbill
- Fly River turtle
- Australian lungfish
- Boeseman's rainbowfish
- Giant redfin gourami
- Seven-spot archerfish
- Silver moony
- Queensland redclaw yabby
- Pinstripe damba
- Red-tailed silverside
- Gold saroy
- Broad-snouted caiman
- Africa
African Veldt
Pride of the Plains
- African lion
- African painted dog
- Red river hog
- Slender-tailed meerkat
The Reed Family Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley
The Downing Gorilla Forest
- Asia
Asian forest
The Slawson Family Tiger Trek
- North America
- Grizzly bear
- American black bear
- White-tailed deer
- North American river otter
- Glossy snake
- Great Plains rat snake
- Western hognose snake
- Copperhead
- Timber rattlesnake
- Prairie rattlesnake
- American wigeon
- Cinnamon teal
- Hooded merganser
- North American ruddy duck
- Northern pintail
- Bald eagle
- American elk
- Mexican wolf
- Pronghorn
- American bison
- Cougar
- Black-tailed prairie dog
- Australia
- Australian shoveler
- Australian wood duck
- Black swan
- Blue-crowned pigeon
- Crested pigeon
- Eastern rosella
- Eclectus parrot
- Freckled duck
- Grand eclectus parrot
- Laughing kookaburra
- Masked lapwing
- Pale-headed rosella
- Pied imperial pigeon
- Plumed whistling duck
- Radjah shelduck
- Straw-necked ibis
- Tammar wallaby
- Tawny frogmouth
- Victoria crowned pigeon
- Double-wattled cassowary
- Emu
- Wallaroo
- Blue-faced honeyeater
- Kea
- Palm cockatoo
- Galah
- Salmon-crested cockatoo
- South America
- Argentine ruddy duck
- Blue-and-yellow macaw
- Blue-billed curassow
- Blue-winged teal
- Boat-billed heron
- Buffon's macaw
- Chiloe wigeon
- Coscoroba swan
- Green winged macaw
- Hyacinth macaw
- Orinoco goose
- Peruvian thick-knee
- Puna ibis
- Puna teal
- Red-fronted macaw
- Red-legged seriema
- Red shoveler
- Roseate spoonbill
- Scarlet macaw
- Southern pudu
- Thick-billed parrot
- White-cheeked pintail
- White-faced whistling duck
- Wood stork
- Yellow-collared macaw
- Yellow-headed amazon
- Yellow-naped amazon
- Capybara
- Green aracari
- Common squirrel monkey
- Blue-throated macaw
- Guira cuckoo
- King vulture
- Blue-crowned motmot
- Crested screamer
- Golden conure
- Blue-headed pionus
- Sun conure
- White-nosed coati
- Chacoan peccary
- Maned wolf
- Giant anteater
- KOCH Orangutan and Chimpanzee Habitat
Facilities
Tram tours are free and go throughout the zoo. Boat tours through the Africa and America sections are available for a fee.
The future
The zoo is currently planning a new zoo entrance and a new elephant management complex for the future, as well as some new additions to the Amphibians and Reptiles building.[1]
Incidents
- On 6 May 2011, a first-grade student on a class field trip climbed over a four-foot fence then crossed the eight-foot gap of the Amur leopard exhibit. The boy was attacked. He suffered lacerations and puncture wounds to his head and neck before a bystander kicked the leopard in the head. The injuries were not considered life-threatening, and the zoo did not euthanize the endangered animal.[8]
References
- "A Zoo to be Proud Of". scz.org. Sedgwick County Zoo. Retrieved 11 September 2010.
- http://www.roomforrhinos.org/news-release/
- "Currently Accredited Zoos and Aquariums". aza.org. AZA. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
- "About SCZ". Sedgwick County Zoo. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
- Stokes, Keith. "Sedgwick County Zoo". kansastravel.org. Kansas Travel and Tourism. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
- http://ksnt.com/2016/03/11/elephants-arrive-at-sedgwick-county-zoo-in-wichita/
- http://www.kwch.com/content/news/Sedgwick-County-Zoo-to-get-new-elephant-481675661.html
- Finger, Stan. "Sedgwick County Zoo leopard attacks boy through cage". kansas.com. The Wichita Eagle. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sedgwick County Zoo. |