Reid Park Zoo

About Reid Park Zoo

Reid Park Zoo is a 24-acre, city-owned and city-operated nonprofit zoo located within Reid Park in Tucson, Arizona, at 1100 South Randolph Way. It was unofficially started in 1965 by Gene Reid, then the city's parks and recreation director, and is generally counted as founded in 1967, when the Tucson City Council approved its first budget and made the zoo part of city operations. The Zoo is accredited and certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums and features more than 500 animals, drawing approximately 500,000 visitors each year.

The Zoo is organized into four zones by habitat and animal type: the Adaptation Zone, the South America zone, the African Animals zone, and an aviary called Flight Connection. Each groups species by the kind of environment they come from rather than mixing them by chance, a structure that has held as the Zoo has expanded from its original small collection of pheasants, peafowl, and guinea fowl into a modern accredited zoo with a curatorial and veterinary staff.

History

In 1965, Gene Reid started a small zoo just north of the present site with exhibits of pheasants, peafowl, and guinea fowl. Later in the decade, prairie dogs from Lubbock, Texas were added in a "Prairie Dog Town," and a 1.5-acre "collection of animals" became known as the Randolph Park Children's Zoo. The first "exotic" animal purchase, in the fall of that period, was a two-year-old male Asian elephant. In 1967 and 1968, the city council approved the zoo's first budget of $49,000, effectively opening it as part of city operations under the name Randolph Park Zoo, with new arrivals including an alligator, bear, camel, leopard, primates, and a tapir.

The 1970s brought professionalization: admission fees began in 1972, J.L. Swigert became the zoo's first professional administrator, and Michael Flint was hired as its first curator; that decade the zoo joined the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. In 1975, Dr. Ivo Poglayen became the second administrator, an entrance and gift shop were built, and staff traveled to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park to bring back two rhinos, Zibulo and Yebonga — Yebonga, born in 1973, was still at the zoo in 2024 and known there as "The Queen of the Reid Park Zoo." Macaw Island opened in 1976. The African Veldt exhibit, for zebra and ostrich, was built in 1977, and the Asian Grasslands exhibit opened in 1978, the same year the park — and the zoo along with it — was renamed Reid Park Zoo.

Growth continued through the 1980s and 1990s with new entrances, gift shops, a waterfowl exhibit in 1982, and an administration building completed in 1988. In 1992 the former Asian Grasslands area became the African Savanna with new African species, and the zoo added its Flight Connection Aviary in December 1999. The 2000s brought an expanded polar bear exhibit in 2003, the Lee H. Brown Family Conservation Learning Center in 2008, and a splash pad called Kenya Get Wet in 2007. The largest recent expansion, Expedition Tanzania, broke ground in 2010 and opened to the public in 2012 as a 7-acre elephant habitat within the African Animals zone. Zoo management transferred from the City of Tucson to the Reid Park Zoological Society in 2018, alongside a new Animal Health Center.

Exhibits and habitats

The Adaptation Zone houses animals including the grizzly bear and the Aldabra giant tortoise. The South America zone is home to species such as the jaguar and the spectacled bear. The African Animals zone features lions and giraffes and contains the Zoo's largest recent addition, Expedition Tanzania, a 7-acre elephant habitat that opened in 2012. Flight Connection, a large aviary, hosts dozens of bird species from Australia, Africa, and Asia.

Expedition Tanzania is currently home to an all-female herd of five African bush elephants: Semba, the matriarch; Lungile, an unrelated female serving as an allomother; Nandi, daughter of Mabu and Semba and the first elephant ever born in Arizona, on August 20, 2014; Penzi, also a daughter of Mabu and Semba, born April 6, 2020; and Meru, born March 8, 2024. In October 2024, Tsavo, an African bull elephant, arrived from Disney's Animal Kingdom to breed with the resident cow elephants.

Animal highlights

Reid Park Zoo describes its collection as more than 500 animals across its four habitat zones. Species named on the Zoo's own materials include the grizzly bear and Aldabra giant tortoise in the Adaptation Zone, the jaguar and spectacled bear in the South America zone, and lions and giraffes in the African Animals zone, alongside the elephant herd in Expedition Tanzania — Semba, Lungile, Nandi, Penzi, and Meru, plus the bull Tsavo. Flight Connection houses dozens of bird species from Australia, Africa, and Asia. A blue duiker pair was added in 2023, and the Zoo's rhino, Yebonga, born in 1973, has lived there since 1975.

Conservation and programs

Reid Park Zoo has a documented medical partnership with the University of Arizona Cancer Center, through which radiation oncologists can treat zoo animals with cancer using radiation therapy and heat therapy; animals have been transported to the zoo from around the country for this care, including a Galapagos tortoise treated in 1983. In 2006, a group of local activists called Save Tucson Elephants lobbied the city to move the zoo's two elephants, Connie and Shaba, to a sanctuary in Tennessee; the city council instead voted to raise funds for a new elephant enclosure after receiving public petitions to keep the elephants in Tucson.

Planning your visit

Reid Park Zoo's own hours, ticket prices, parking details, and accessibility information were not available in the sources used for this page. As a city-owned, city-park zoo covering 24 acres, it draws about 500,000 visitors a year, suggesting a well-established, regularly open attraction, but specific visitor logistics should be confirmed directly with the Zoo. Check the official website for current hours, admission prices, parking, and accessibility information before planning a trip.