Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

About Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is a 335-acre animal theme park in Tampa, Florida, landscaped and designed around themes of Africa. It is owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The park opened on March 31, 1959, alongside an Anheuser-Busch brewery, and its annual attendance has consistently exceeded 4 million visitors, often ranking second among its parent company's parks behind SeaWorld Orlando. By its own description, Busch Gardens is Tampa's largest zoo, with more than 200 species of animals.

Unlike a traditional zoo laid out as a single loop, Busch Gardens is organized into themed lands, each combining animal habitats with rides and live entertainment: Morocco, Sesame Street Safari of Fun, Stanleyville, Congo, Jungala, Pantopia, Nairobi, Edge of Africa, and Egypt. Its animal areas range from a large, open-range plain modeled on East African grassland to smaller walk-through habitats focused on individual species groups.

History

The park began in 1959 as a small, 15-acre garden built beside Anheuser-Busch's new Tampa brewery, opened free to the public with lagoons, roughly 36,000 flowering plants, a bird sanctuary with flamingos, and caged eagles and cockatoos. Expansion followed quickly: an African veldt area called the Wild Animal Kingdom opened in 1965 with cheetahs, chimpanzees, elephants, gorillas, lions, and rhinos imported largely from Africa, and by 1970 the Boma area had added African mammals, birds, and a man-made mountain, alongside the park's first general admission charge. An African village, later renamed Stanleyville, opened in 1972 with an elephant show, gorilla and okapi enclosures, and its own train station.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the park layered in the Congo and Timbuktu sections and its first roller coasters, while continuing to expand its animal areas; a pair of pandas was exhibited on loan from China in 1987 and 1988. The Myombe Reserve, a 3-acre home for western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees, opened in 1992 in the Nairobi area. The Serengeti Plain, first opened in 1965 as one of the earliest free-roaming animal habitats of its kind at any American park, was later revitalized and has since expanded from its original 29 acres to its current 65 acres. Edge of Africa, a walk-through habitat, opened in 1997.

Anheuser-Busch closed its Tampa brewery in 1995 and later sold its Busch Entertainment parks to the Blackstone Group in 2009, after which the park came under SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, since renamed United Parks & Resorts. Animal-focused development continued alongside new rides: Jungala, a 4-acre habitat for tigers and orangutans, opened in 2008; Cheetah Run opened in 2011; and the Animal Care Center, a nearly 16,000-square-foot veterinary hospital open to public viewing, opened in Nairobi in 2012. The Rhino Rally safari attraction closed in 2015 and was eventually replaced by the Serengeti Flyer in 2023.

Exhibits and habitats

The Serengeti Plain is the park's largest animal habitat, an open-range area that has grown from an original 29 acres to its current 65 acres. It is home to Grévy's zebra, Grant's zebra, Grant's gazelle, Thomson's gazelle, sable antelope, reticulated giraffe, Ankole-Watusi cattle, addax, waterbuck, greater kudu, Southern white rhinoceros, common eland, impala, common ostrich, and lowland nyala, plus a secluded area for a solitary female eastern black rhinoceros named Jody.

Edge of Africa, a walk-through area that opened in 1997, lets guests observe a Nile crocodile named Sobek, meerkats, a coalition of lions named Henri, Herman, Hugo, Lou, and Pascal, spotted hyenas named Dazi and Cazi, three hippos named Moyo, Kita, and Devi, and a troop of ring-tailed lemurs. Because Moyo and Kita are father and daughter, the park rotates them into the exhibit and holding areas on alternating days to prevent inbreeding. Myombe Reserve is a 3-acre habitat for western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees, opened in 1992. Jungala, opened in 2008, includes Orangutan Outpost, a tree-top platform for viewing Bornean and Sumatran orangutans (five as of 2026), and Tiger Lodge and Tiger Trail, home to six tigers including Leon, Rukayah, the Sumatran tiger Bandar, and the Malayan tiger Asmara, who gave birth to two cubs fathered by Rukayah in August 2026.

Bird Gardens, part of the park's original 1959 footprint, is a free-flight aviary showing more than 500 tropical birds, including parrots and flamingos. Within it, Walkabout Way lets guests hand-feed kangaroos and wallabies and see kookaburras, magpies, black swans, and tawny frogmouths, while Lory Landing is an open aviary where guests can hand-feed lorikeets. Cheetah Run, next to the Cheetah Hunt roller coaster, is home to the park's cheetahs, with five in the collection as of 2026, and includes running demonstrations and keeper talks throughout the day.

Animal highlights

Busch Gardens describes its collection as more than 200 species, making it, by its own account, Tampa's largest zoo. Species named across its exhibits include the Southern white rhinoceros, eastern black rhinoceros, reticulated giraffe, Grévy's and Grant's zebras, Ankole-Watusi cattle, addax, western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, Bornean and Sumatran orangutans, Sumatran and Malayan tigers, cheetah, Nile crocodile, spotted hyena, meerkat, ring-tailed lemur, hippopotamus, and lion. Its Nairobi section is also home to three female Asian elephants named Simba (56 years old), Carina (52), and Karnaudi (36), with daily interactions offered at an elephant interaction and husbandry wall.

Conservation and programs

Busch Gardens' Animal Care Center, opened in 2012, gives visitors a view into veterinary treatments, X-rays, and nutrition work performed on the park's animals, and is the setting for "Wildlife Docs," an Emmy-nominated television series following the park's animal caretakers as they treat more than 12,000 animals across the property. The park also manages its animal population deliberately at the individual level, as with its rotation of the related hippos Moyo and Kita to prevent inbreeding. In 1998, the park purchased a 108-acre property north of San Antonio, Florida, to serve as an animal retirement facility.

Planning your visit

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay sits at 10165 N McKinley Dr in Tampa and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The park has offered ticketing and access improvements over the years, including fingerprint-scan entry and self-service kiosks introduced in 2005, and tunnels built under McKinley Drive to ease parking-lot access. Since 2014, Busch Gardens has participated in Tampa's CityPass program alongside other local zoos and aquariums.

Because current hours, ticket prices, and seasonal event schedules were not available in the sources used for this page, confirm all visit details directly on the official Busch Gardens Tampa Bay website before planning a trip.