Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

About Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens is a zoo and botanical garden in Jacksonville, Florida, opened in 1914 and spread across 122 acres at 370 Zoo Parkway. It's home to more than 2,000 rare and exotic animals and over 1,000 plant specimens, run with the tagline "for animals. for plants. forever." The zoo has been an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums since 1987 — more than 30 years — a status that requires renewal every five years through a detailed on-site inspection covering animal care and welfare, keeper training, safety, education programs, conservation initiatives, veterinary programs, and financial stability.

The zoo describes itself as one of only seven zoos in the United States with a dedicated animal wellness team, a group focused on the physical and mental wellbeing of every animal in its care. That wellness focus shows up directly in exhibit design: staff describe gathering and analyzing behavioral data from animals and applying it to how new habitats are built. The zoo also supports more than 45 plant and animal conservation programs regionally and globally, funded in part by proceeds from ticket sales and memberships.

Guests move through the grounds along a series of regional loops and exhibit areas — including Range of the Jaguar, Land of the Tiger, the African Plains, Wild Florida, and the Primate Forest — each built around a mix of immersive habitats and gardens.

Exhibits and habitats

Primate Forest anchors the African side of the zoo, entered through an African Forest gateway dominated by a 40-foot Kapok tree that serves as the exhibit's centerpiece; the tree's trunk is accessible internally to staff via a stairway for animal care. The exhibit reflects the zoo's wellness-focused design philosophy, built using behavioral observation data gathered by the Animal Wellness Department. Species here include bonobo, Angolan colobus, Guereza colobus, western lowland gorilla, and several lemur species — black-and-white ruffed, ring-tailed, sifaka, crowned, and blue-eyed black lemurs — along with mandrill.

The zoo's Asia Loop opens with a Komodo dragon exhibit set to resemble an Indonesian fishing village, where visitors can sometimes watch keepers train the dragons through an interactive viewing panel. The loop continues into Land of the Tiger, an award-winning 2.5-acre exhibit where Malayan and Sumatran tigers roam via an innovative trail system that lets them appear almost anywhere within the space; the exhibit also houses North Sulawesi babirusa, wreathed and rhinoceros hornbills, Asian small-clawed otters, and Visayan warty pigs, plus koi elsewhere in the loop.

Range of the Jaguar, a two-time national award-winning exhibit themed to South America, includes a village area with the Palm Plaza restaurant and Village Sweet Shop, plus the Lost Temple, home to bushmaster snakes, poison dart frogs, anacondas, vampire bats, and Utila spiny-tailed iguanas. Nearby, the River's Edge exhibit mixes howler monkeys, giant anteaters, and capybaras in one habitat, while the Emerald Forest Aviary lets visitors walk among free-flying birds like the Inca tern, red-capped cardinal, sunbittern, and macaws, and is home to the arapaima, the largest freshwater fish species, which can reach 15 feet and 400 pounds. Rare giant otters live at the back of the aviary.

Play Park and Splash Ground, a 2.5-acre children's area past Range of the Jaguar, combines two mazes, a 4,000-square-foot splash ground, a treehouse, a rock wall, and a dig-for-artifacts area, along with Sloth Crossing — home to sloths Ruth and Chata in a climate-controlled indoor and outdoor space filled with vines and climbing structures — a Nigerian Dwarf goat encounter, and views of Magellanic penguins at Tuxedo Coast (currently closed for enhancements).

An elevated boardwalk lets visitors get eye-to-eye with reticulated giraffes across a 2.5-acre Giraffe Overlook exhibit set against a replica African Savanna, next to the Savanna Blooms botanical garden. Guests can also feed and pet several stingray species at Stingray Bay. The 1,400-foot Plains of East Africa boardwalk passes a greater flamingo exhibit, Aldabra tortoises, warthogs, an eastern bongo and yellow-backed duiker exhibit at the loop's center, a wild breeding colony of endangered wood storks, wattled cranes, white rhinoceros, greater kudu, east African crowned cranes, and a Grévy's zebra exhibit. Elephant Plaza offers close views of the zoo's two female and one male African elephants around a 275,000-gallon pool, alongside the African Reptile Building, home to venomous species like vipers, cobras, and mambas. Mahali Pa Simiba ("Place of the Lion" in Swahili) is a one-acre lion habitat, with siamangs housed nearby.

Wild Florida covers 2.5 acres of native wetland habitat, home to alligators, black bears, whooping cranes, bald eagles, bobcats, white-tailed deer, and pudu, plus a Reptile House holding more than 25 reptile and amphibian species, including the threatened eastern indigo snake. Lorikeet Landing, themed to the South Pacific, includes a cassowary, emus, and a free-flight lorikeet aviary, plus the Amphibian Conservation Center, which breeds striped newts for reintroduction to the Apalachicola Forest. The River Valley Aviary, a two-story, 9,000-square-foot enclosure, houses free-flying birds such as the yellow-billed stork, white-bellied bustard, and turacos. The zoo recently opened the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Manatee River habitat as a new gateway exhibit.

Animal highlights

The zoo's own figures put its collection at more than 2,000 animals and roughly 1,000 plant varieties across its grounds. Species named across the zoo's exhibit areas include African elephants, lions, western lowland gorillas, bonobos, Malayan and Sumatran tigers, jaguars, Komodo dragons, southern white rhinoceros, Grévy's zebra, reticulated giraffes, greater kudu, several crane species (wattled and east African crowned), whooping cranes, wood storks, American alligators, North American black bears, bobcats, giant anteaters, capybaras, howler monkeys, mandrills, several lemur species, Asian small-clawed otters, giant otters, cassowaries, Magellanic penguins, sloths, Nigerian Dwarf goats, and a range of venomous snakes and stingrays. As a floor rather than a ceiling, this list reflects only the species named across the zoo's published exhibit descriptions.

Conservation and programs

The zoo supports more than 45 animal and plant conservation programs at regional and global levels, funded in part through ticket and membership revenue. Its education arm runs "Connecting Classrooms to Conservation," a project-based learning program for students of any grade or ability level that pairs one field trip to the zoo with in-school visits from the zoo's education team, either spread across a school year or condensed into a week. Program options include a mascot-based conservation project matching a school's mascot animal to a real conservation organization working to protect it, a pollinator program involving pollinator monitoring and a guided garden tour, and a waterways program culminating in a guided tour focused on the Florida manatee, the zoo's local waterway "ambassador."

On the animal welfare side, the zoo highlights its dedicated Animal Wellness team — one of only seven such teams among U.S. zoos — which studies animal behavior to inform both daily care and new habitat design, as seen in the development of Primate Forest.

Planning your visit

As listed on the zoo's website, the zoo is open daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, with day-of ticket sales closing at 4 p.m. and last entry at 4:30 p.m. Online tickets are required — the zoo operates as a cashless facility and does not sell tickets at the gate. Ticket types include General Admission and the more expensive Total Experience package, which adds access to the 4D Theater, unlimited train and carousel rides, the Nature Agent Adventure scavenger-hunt app, and limited animal feedings; feedings and the train are not available as standalone purchases, though carousel and 4D Theater tickets can be bought individually in the park. Membership includes 50 percent off general admission for those the membership covers, plus other discounts, and active military ID holders receive 10 percent off. Group discounts are available for parties of 15 or more visiting at the same time.

For accessibility, the zoo describes its pathways, exhibits, and facilities as ADA-accessible, with accessible parking, ramp access to the main entrance, and wheelchair, ECV, and stroller rentals available on a first-come, first-served basis near the main gate (a driver's license is held as a deposit). Sensory supports include sensory bags with noise-canceling headphones, sensory maps marking noisy and quiet areas, a tactile map for visitors with visual impairments, and social stories to help prepare for a visit. American Sign Language interpreters are available by request for programs and tours with three weeks' notice.

For food, the Palm Plaza Cafe and Trout River Grill offer gluten-free and vegetarian options on request, and outside food is generally not permitted except in the designated Picnic Grove area near Main Camp (water bottles are allowed throughout). As with all details here, confirm current hours, ticket prices, and program availability on the zoo's official website before visiting.