Recent Visit to the Buffalo Zoo

The Buffalo Zoo has a few newer attractions for people to experience. There are all kinds of different animals to see. Anywhere from elephants to bears and giraffes to monkeys are there for your viewing pleasure. The sea lion cove is one of the newer areas. It has a large swimming section that goes around with huge rocks for the sea lions to swim and play. There usually is a sea lion show, but you have to check the time schedules. The Rainforest is probably the newest coolest part of the whole entire zoo.

It is a large enclosed glass building in the center of the zoo which holds several exotic animals separated by partitions with many different trees and plants placed throughout. It really has the look and atmosphere of being in the jungle. As you walk through the rainforest, there is a small mist of water that is spraying throughout and keeps the plants fully hydrated and cools you off. People can cross a bridge that goes from one side to another and over a pond. You can also walk the path that goes around the bridge or go upstairs to get a view higher up and overlook the entire rainforest attraction.

Most of the animals were nice to see, but they just layed around or stood in one position like a statue. Such as the elephants, bears, gorillas, sheep, rhinos and giraffes. It's more interesting when they are eating or playing around. The Buffalo Zoo needs to have more shows or presentations for the customers. How come at the circus the animals are trained and do some tricks? They seem more lively too. How hard would it be to train the animals to do tricks for the people at the zoo? The circus travels around and they are more entertaining than the animals at the zoo. There are some zoo workers that talk about their animals that they take care of but, its only twice a day like 2pm and 6pm.

Some of the animals we wanted to see, we couldn't find. The sea lions were not out in the open as we walked around the sea lion cove. The children's petting zoo was an up close experience. They had a baby goat and pony for the children. One at a time the keeper let the kids go in and pet the animals or take pictures standing near them.

Overall, The Buffalo Zoo could use some upgrades and more shows to see that occur more often. We walked the whole zoo in two and a half hours seeing every exhibit in the whole place. That is with a one and a half year old walking most of the time, which tells you it is a small zoo. There were a lot of bees around especially near every garbage can and people were swatting them away and kids were running from them. The bee problem should be taken care of because of the amount of them all over the zoo. The admission prices are $9.50 for adults $6.00 for students and kids under 3 free. Parking is $3.50 in the lot otherwise you can park free along one of the nearby streets if you don't mind the walk.

I recommend going on a weekday and at 10am when the zoo opens there were only about 15 people there when we arrived. There were no lines or traffic jams at all. It started getting busier around lunch time and when we left the whole parking lot was filled.