Sedgwick County Zoo

About Sedgwick County Zoo

Sedgwick County Zoo sits in Wichita, Kansas, and opened to the public on August 25, 1971, the result of a public-private partnership between Sedgwick County and the Sedgwick County Zoological Society. The society had formed in 1963, and by 1966 voters had approved $3.65 million in bonds to buy the land that became both the zoo and Sedgwick County Park. Richard Blakey, previously director of the Brookfield Zoo, was hired as the new zoo's first director. The zoo replaced a small, outdated exhibit that had stood in Central Riverside Park since the turn of the 20th century.

Today the zoo is AZA accredited and houses more than 3,000 animals representing nearly 400 species, at least according to the counts on record. That places it as the 13th largest zoo in the country by both species count and total number of animals, and 7th largest by total area. It has also become the number one outdoor tourist attraction in Kansas. The grounds cover 247 acres, of which 115 are developed.

The zoo is organized into regional and thematic areas built up over more than five decades, from the original American and Asian farm exhibits to large-scale habitats for gorillas, elephants, and big cats added far more recently. Alongside its exhibits, the zoo has built out visitor infrastructure including an animal hospital, a learning center, a train, and a boat ride, and it has become known nationally for a handful of conservation and breeding milestones described below.

History

The zoo's first exhibits were just two buildings, the American and Asian farms, when it opened in 1971. Growth came steadily afterward: the African Veldt exhibit opened in 1973, the Herpetarium (today called Amphibians & Reptiles) in 1974, and the Jungle, now known as Tropics, in 1977. The Australian Outback and South American Pampas exhibits, now combined as Australia/South America, opened in 1980, and the Apes & Man building, today the Koch Orangutan and Chimpanzee Habitat, opened in 1982, adding outdoor enclosures for both species in 1996.

The 1990s and 2000s brought larger habitats. The North American Prairie, now called North America, opened in 1993. Pride of the Plains followed on May 29, 2000, and Downing Gorilla Forest opened in 2004. Cessna Penguin Cove, the zoo's first marine exhibit, opened in 2007. The Slawson Family Tiger Trek opened in 2009 and was expanded and reopened as the Slawson Family Asian Big Cat Trek in 2021. On the infrastructure side, Oliver Animal Hospital opened in 2000 and the 15,000-square-foot Cargill Learning Center in 2006.

More recent additions include the Reed Family Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley, which opened in May 2016 after six African elephants arrived from Eswatini's Hlane Royal National Park to survive a drought, and Stingray Cove, which opened in April 2022. A new entrance opened on May 27, 2021, completing what the zoo calls Phase 1 of a 25-year master plan that also included the Asian Big Cat Trek expansion and a new electric train route.

Exhibits and habitats

Downing Gorilla Forest opens into a recreation of a small Congo village, with exhibits for colobus monkeys and white pelicans, then crosses a bridge to areas for saddle-billed storks, black crowned cranes, and okapis before reaching its main gorilla habitat, viewable indoors, through large windows, or across a moat. Pride of the Plains winds past lions, red river hogs, and two meerkat exhibits set among large boulders in a kopje theme, ending at an exhibit for African painted dogs.

The African Veldt, open since 1973, currently holds two reticulated giraffes, two Grévy's zebras, a black rhinoceros, two ring-tailed lemurs, marabou storks, and blue cranes; the zoo also kept a pair of Nile hippopotamuses, Pudgie and Sweetie Pie, for more than 50 years until their deaths in 2023 and 2025. The Reed Family Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley covers more than 5 acres, making it the third-largest elephant exhibit in the United States, and includes a 550,000-gallon pool separated from a boat canal by an underwater barrier so visitors appear to share the water with the elephants.

The Amphibians & Reptiles building, formerly the Herpetarium, opens with outdoor and indoor viewing for Aldabra tortoises and a riverbank tank of Kansas native turtles, fish, bullfrogs, and gars, then branches into terrariums holding a Chinese alligator, Jamaican iguanas, king cobras, black mambas, eastern green mambas, Indochinese spitting cobras, and Gaboon vipers. Tropics is a 28,000-square-foot indoor rainforest, the second-oldest of its kind in the country, with more than 300 species of live plants and roughly 50 species of free-flying birds alongside tropical fish, reptiles, bats, and invertebrates; a $3 million upgrade in 2015 replaced its roof for better light and humidity.

The Slawson Family Asian Big Cat Trek houses Amur and Malayan tigers, red pandas, brow-antlered deer, Amur leopards, and snow leopards, with a section where the leopards can be seen above guests' heads. North America, at 11 acres one of the zoo's largest sections, holds American bison, elk, black bears, grizzly bears, North American river otters, cougars, black-footed ferrets, Mexican wolves, and black-tailed prairie dogs. Australia/South America, joined exhibits forming one of the largest walk-through aviaries in the country, features emu, southern cassowary, wallaroo, and free-ranging tammar wallabies alongside capybara, Chacoan peccary, giant anteater, maned wolf, and Galapagos tortoises. The Koch Orangutan and Chimpanzee Habitat houses both species across multiple viewing levels, and the Children's Farms area, dating to the zoo's opening, includes more than 40 breeds of domestic animals that visitors can feed and pet. Stingray Cove, open seasonally from March through October, centers on a touch tank of stingrays and bamboo sharks.

Two rides move visitors through the grounds. The Martha C. Buford Safari Express, an electric train with two locomotives and four cars each, runs a 1.3-mile loop with stops near the entrance and near Downing Gorilla Forest, passing behind the scenes of several exhibits. A boat ride in the Africa section passes an island of eastern white pelicans, the Downing Gorilla Forest, and the North America exhibit before returning past the elephant pool.

Animal highlights

The zoo is home to nearly 400 species on record, comprising more than 3,000 individual animals. Notable residents include the zoo's gorilla troop, the elephant herd at the Reed Family exhibit, Amur and Malayan tigers, Amur and snow leopards, Sumatran orangutans and chimpanzees, reticulated giraffes, Grévy's zebras, a black rhinoceros, Mexican wolves, black-footed ferrets, king cobras, and Aldabra tortoises.

The elephant herd has drawn particular attention. A male, Ajani, joined the herd from Birmingham Zoo in 2018 for breeding before transferring to the Toledo Zoo; Callee joined from Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in 2023. In 2025 the herd produced its first calves: Simunye's calf Malaika was stillborn in March, but Talia gave birth in April to Bomani, the first surviving elephant calf in the zoo's history, followed within months by Xolani's calf Kijani, Arusi's calf Asali, and Zuberi's calf Dakari.

Conservation and programs

Sedgwick County Zoo has contributed to the Mexican wolf Species Survival Plan since the wolves arrived with the opening of the North America exhibit, and multiple pups born at the zoo have been released into the wild. In 2008, a female Komodo dragon at the zoo hatched two offspring through parthenogenesis, without any contact with a male since her arrival in 1993 — the first documented case of parthenogenetic reproduction in a Komodo dragon at a North American zoo, and only the third documented occurrence worldwide after hatchings at the London Zoo and Chester Zoo in 2006.

Planning your visit

The zoo is located at 5555 W Zoo Blvd in Wichita. Specific current hours, ticket prices, and parking details were not available in the sources used for this page, so check the official website before visiting. The grounds cover 247 developed acres across multiple themed sections, plus the Martha C. Buford Safari Express train and a boat ride through the Africa section, both of which add time to a visit beyond walking the exhibits themselves.

Given the size of the property — 115 developed acres among 247 total — and the number of major exhibit areas, from Downing Gorilla Forest to the Reed Family Elephants habitat to the Amphibians & Reptiles building, a full visit covering the main sections is likely to take a significant part of a day. As always, confirm hours, admission, parking, and accessibility details on the zoo's official website before you go.