The gardens of the Low Desert – Colorado Desert were established in 1970 as a 360-acre (150ha) wilderness preserve by several trustees of the Palm Springs Desert Museum. By 1974, the gardens housed a kit fox, tortoises, lizards, and two bighorn sheep. In 1974–75 the Mojave Garden was built, a replica of the High Desert – Mojave Desert. Additional facilities have gradually been constructed, including greenhouses, model trains, and designed landscape gardens. New animal introductions include rhim gazelles (1981); mountain lions, bobcats and badgers (1993); meerkats; cheetahs and warthogs (1995); striped hyenas (1998); giraffes and ostriches (2002). The 'Amphibians on the Edge' exhibit shows a variety of different species of frogs, toads, and salamanders (2007). The Endangered Species Carousel was constructed in fall 2009, and the Peninsular Pronghorn Exhibit was constructed in fall 2010. The exhibit, Monarch of the Desert, was constructed on the North America Trail and featured the majestic jaguar. In 2020, Australian Adventures opened as an immersive habitat featuring Bennett's Wallaby, Yellow-footed rock wallaby, kookaburra and more. The Living Desert opened the Rhino Savanna in Fall 2021.[5] The Living Desert is one of six accredited (AZA) private zoos in the United States and operates as a non-profit.
In 2023, the Animal Care Department voted to unionize.[6]
Goals and Mission
The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens' mission is desert conservation through preservation, education, and appreciation. It is a zoo and botanic garden combination dedicated solely to the deserts of the world. The programs provide environmental education, native wildlife rehabilitation, plant propagation, and habitat restoration, and breeding of African, Australian, and North America species, including the area's iconic desert bighorn sheep.
Animal habitats
The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is divided into regions, each housing animals from three continents.[7]
Australian Adventures is an immersive, walk-through habitat, where guests pass through an aviary featuring parakeets, reptiles and wallabies. Other animals include:
East African Garden – large collection of native East African plants, shrubs and trees; one of the larger collections of African plants in North America.
Mallow Garden – small collection of desert mallows.
McDonald Butterfly and Wildflower Garden – nectar (adults) and 'grazing' (larvae) plants that attract migrating butterflies, such as milkweeds (genus Asclepias) and butterfly-bush (Buddleja).
Mexican Columnar Cactus Garden – tall, columnar and sculptural cactus specimens, such as Mexican fencepost (Lophocereus marginatus).
Ocotillo Garden – nine of twelve known ocotillo species.
Yucca Garden – Yucca and Joshua tree species in a replicated native foliage garden.
Other features
The Zoo and Gardens featured one of the world's largest LGB model railroad layouts, with 3,115 feet (949m) of the track. The world's longest wooden G-scale model trestle, at 201.8ft (61.5m), lets trains travel between the upper and lower portions of the wash in which it was built – an almost 2-foot (0.61m) drop. The trains started in 1998 as part of the annual WildLights holiday program and ran only in the evenings. In 2000 the trains started running throughout the year and during the day and at present there are 18 separate train lines that can run simultaneously. The trains and track are managed by an all-volunteer team.[9][10]
The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens features nature and hiking trails accessible only to members and visitors of the Park.
Wildlife Wonders Show is seasonally offered and features free-flight birds, animal demonstrations, and encounters.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is a zoo and safari park in San Diego, California, located in San Pasqual Valley. The park houses over 3,000 animals representing more than 300 species. It houses a large array of wild and endangered animals from every continent except Antarctica. The park also includes a botanical garden with over one million plants.
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum, publisher, and art gallery founded in 1952. Located just west of Tucson, Arizona, it features two miles (3.2 km) of walking paths traversing 21 acres of desert landscape. It is one of the most visited attractions in Southern Arizona.
The Sonoran Desert is a hot desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States. It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).
The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is a 133-acre (54 ha) zoo founded in 1966 and located in Los Angeles, California, United States. The city of Los Angeles owns the zoo, its land and facilities, and the animals.
The Moorten Botanical Garden and Cactarium is a 1 acre (0.40 ha) family-owned botanical garden in Palm Springs, California, specializing in cacti and other desert plants. The gardens lie within Riverside County's Coachella Valley, part of the Colorado Desert ecosystem.
The Phoenix Zoo opened in 1962 and is the largest privately owned nonprofit zoo in the United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the zoo was founded by Robert Maytag, a member of the Maytag family, and operates on 125 acres (51 ha) of land in the Papago Park area of Phoenix. It has been designated as a Phoenix Point of Pride.
The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park, formerly the Living Desert Zoological and Botanical State Park, is a zoo and botanical garden displaying plants and animals of the Chihuahuan Desert in their native habitats. It is located off U.S. Route 285 at the north edge of Carlsbad, New Mexico, at an elevation of 3,200 feet (980 m) atop the Ocotillo Hills overlooking the city and the Pecos River. It is open every day except Christmas.
Leipzig Zoological Garden, or Leipzig Zoo is a zoo in Leipzig`s district Mitte, Germany. It was first opened on June 9, 1878. It was taken over by the city of Leipzig in 1920 after World War I and now covers about 27 hectares and contains approximately 850 species. By 2020, the zoo featured six different theme worlds, aiming at providing habitats appropriate for the species on display.
Ironwood Forest National Monument is located in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Created by Bill Clinton by Presidential Proclamation 7320 on June 9, 2000, the monument is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the United States Department of the Interior. The monument covers 129,055 acres (52,227 ha), of which 59,573 acres (24,108 ha) are non-federal and include private land holdings and Arizona State School Trust lands.
The Binder Park Zoo is a 433-acre (175 ha) zoo that opened in 1977 near Battle Creek, Michigan, in the United States. Binder Park Zoo is one of the largest zoos in Michigan, and features a large array of animals and plants, including the Wild Africa Exhibit. It includes a train, a tram, a carousel, and ropes course called "Skylark Ridge".
Located at the mouth of Salt Lake City's Emigration Canyon, Utah's Hogle Zoo is a 42-acre (17 ha) Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) accredited facility. Hogle Zoo is one of the largest zoos in the Intermountain West, and houses over 800 animals representing 250 species.
The San Antonio Zoo is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums–accredited zoo in Midtown San Antonio, Texas, United States. It is located in the city's Brackenridge Park. San Antonio Zoo is a 50+ acre zoo home to over 750 species, some of which are endangered or extinct in the wild, and an annual attendance of more than 1 million. It also runs non-animal attractions, such as the 2 ft narrow gauge San Antonio Zoo Eagle train ride, which first opened in 1956.
Africam Safari is a Mexican safari park that was established in 1972 by Captain Carlos Camacho Espíritu. It is about 17 kilometres (11 mi) from the city of Puebla, Mexico.
The Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is located in Arizona in the southwestern United States, northeast of Yuma and southeast of Quartzsite. The refuge, established in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep, encompasses over 665,400 acres (2,693 km2) of the Yuma Desert region of the Sonoran Desert. Broad, gently sloping foothills as well as the sharp, needlepoint peaks of the Kofa Mountains are found in the rugged refuge. The small, widely scattered waterholes attract a surprising number of water birds for a desert area. A wide variety of plant life is also found throughout the refuge. Kofa Wilderness takes up 547,719 acres of the refuge, making it the second largest wilderness area in Arizona.
The deserts of California are the distinct deserts that each have unique ecosystems and habitats. The deserts are home to a sociocultural and historical "Old West" collection of legends, districts, and communities, and they also form a popular tourism region of dramatic natural features and recreational development. Part of this region was even proposed to become a new county due to cultural, economic and geographic differences relative to the rest of the more urban region.
The Mopah Range is a desert mountain range, in the Lower Colorado River Valley region, in southeastern San Bernardino County, California.
The Cleghorn Lakes Wilderness is a 39,167-acre (158.50 km2) wilderness area in the southern Mojave Desert. It is located 16 miles (26 km) northeast of Twentynine Palms, California, and 20 miles (32 km) north of Joshua Tree National Park. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Akron Zoo, officially known as the Akron Zoological Park, is a non-profit zoo located just west of downtown in Akron, Ohio, United States. The zoo sits on 77-acre (31 ha) of which 35-acre (14 ha) are occupied with by habitats, amenities, and support.
The Santa Rosa Wilderness is a 72,259-acre (292.42 km2) wilderness area in Southern California, in the Santa Rosa Mountains of Riverside and San Diego counties, California. It is in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert, above the Coachella Valley and Lower Colorado River Valley regions in a Peninsular Range, between La Quinta to the north and Anza Borrego Desert State Park to the south. The United States Congress established the wilderness in 1984 with the passage of the California Wilderness Act, managed by both the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. In 2009, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act was signed into law which added more than 2,000 acres (8.1 km2). Most of the Santa Rosa Wilderness is within the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.
Barcelona Zoo is a zoo in the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The zoo used to be internationally known as the home of Snowflake, the only known albino gorilla, who died in 2003.
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