Garden City, Kansas, a city of 28,000, has an astonishingly nice little zoo. For such a small city, in the middle of nowhere (well, not quite nowhere, the In Cold Blood trial was held there (I did manage to convince myself that visiting Holcomb would be inappropriate.)), I was amazed.
They have very nice enclosures, though a bit small for the elephants and rhino–to the extent that a sign warns that the rhino marks his territory by urinating toward the sidewalk–and barely tolerable for the giraffes. They have an expansion fundraising going on; I hope some of that goes to the African animals. They are well cared for, obviously, but if they can’t get more space the zoo should probably donate them to better homes and replace them with smaller animals.
The remainder of the enclosures were appropriate to the species. The camels (both kinds) had plenty of room, for example. An extremely nicely designed little Asian area has some treats, and they are currently working on making the South American area equally nice.
And I don’t care what the signs say, some of the animals expect to be fed! A pronghorn antelope and an American buffalo came right up to the fence to greet me. Did you know that pronghorns make a birdlike chirruping sound to indicate interest? I didn’t.
As always, when one is the solitary visitor to a zoo on an inclement morning, the animals all pay attention, even if they don’t come up to the fence. Every eye and every ear of every kangaroo was pointed towards me as I viewed them.
My previous standard of quality for a small city zoo was the Pueblo Zoo. Not anymore. I encourage anyone passing through the middle of nowhere to visit this gem.