 Favorite
Part of the Day
Having a staring contest with the ground hogs which eyed us humans with
as much curiosity as we watched him. Seeing an elephant fill up his trunk
with water and give himself a shower to cool off.
Most Fun for Adults
We enjoyed seeing the unusual animals such as the red pandas, white rhinos,
skinks, white tiger, and English Lop-Eared rabbits.
Most Fun for Kids
There was a special exhibit when we were visiting the zoo called Bunnyville.
The kids got to run around through several interactive areas like inside
a bunny burrow and the giant carrot patch with huge "punching bag"
carrots. Also feeding the camels.
 What
it's like
Knoxville Zoo takes about two and a half hours to wander through and is
a great way to spend a few hours. When you enter the zoo, the first exhibit
you see is Bear Falls. The waterfall streaming over huge grey rocks right
in the middle of the courtyard can't be missed. Walk into the "cave"
next to the waterfall to get a good look at some black bears, native to
the region. There are cubby holes for the kids to crawl into which have
windows at the end where they can view the bears playing together. On
our visit, the bears were very active.
This zoo also features three white rhinos which are beautiful, rare animals.
The Knoxville Zoo is recognized for its white rhino breeding program and
is second only to the San Diego Wild Animal Park in white rhino births.
Across from the white rhinos are the unusual red pandas. Even though they
are in the panda family, they look more like a raccoon, sleeping up on
the tree branches with their long tail hanging down.
 A
group of river otters swim playfully around in their large habitat. We
visited during their feeding time. They were fed boiled eggs, shell and
all. Many of the otters played with the eggs before eating them. The zoo
offers a large reptile habitat with several species of turtles and tortoises,
alligators, and the largest snake collection I think I have seen at a
zoo. We were introduced to the skink which is a reptile that looks like
a wide snake with short, little legs.
On the other side of the zoo are the Grasslands Africa and African Forest.
The Stokely African Elephant Preserve is a wonderful area for the zoo's
largest inhabitants. The elephants love to roam around throughout the
large area to play in the mud and spray themselves with water from one
of their ponds. Mamie, one of the elephants, received national press attention
for her talent of painting. It was discovered one day when a zookeeper
set up some paints and paper to see what would happen. Next to the elephants
is a large area where various African animals such as giraffes and gazelles
cohabitate. Zebras and ostriches co-mingle in an area next to Meerkat
Lookout. Unfortunately on the day of our visit we could not see any meerkats.
Chimps, gorillas, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, gibbons and other animals
reside in the African Forest. You can also see the rare white tiger in
this section of the zoo.
 In
front of the Kid's Zoo is the Prairie Dog Pass. Some of the prairie dogs
appear to think that they are watching the people instead of the people
watching them, because one guy seemed very inquisitive and kept checking
out all the new people who came up to his exhibit. Other prairie dogs
would pop in and out of their holes. In the back, the kids can crawl into
a tunnel and pop their head up into a sky roof that is in the exhibit.
They can see the prairie dogs closely and sometimes the prairie dogs sit
on top of that sky light. Another fun part of the Kid's Zoo is a section
where you can go into the goat pen and brush the goats.
See the Slideshow!
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