Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

About Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

Nashville Zoo at Grassmere is a 188-acre zoo in Nashville, Tennessee, accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The zoo cares for 3,736 animals representing 352 species, listed on its website, and sits on the former Grassmere property, a site tied to the Croft family and the historic Grassmere Historic Home, built in 1810 and listed on the National Register of Historic Homes. The zoo is organized around a mix of naturalistic animal habitats, an interactive Jungle Gym play area, a working historic farm, and attractions like a carousel, a train ride, a zip line, and a 4D theater.

The zoo's collection spans a wide range of animal groups, from Sumatran tigers, clouded leopards, and Southern white rhinoceros to smaller residents like axolotls, Gila monsters, and a colony of alligator snapping turtles, alongside Amur leopards, Andean bears, Komodo dragons, Masai giraffes, and meerkats. The zoo describes conservation as central to its identity, citing breeding, research, and habitat protection work carried out alongside its public exhibits.

Nashville Zoo grew out of an earlier zoo in Joelton, Tennessee, before relocating to the Grassmere property in South Nashville, and it has continued to expand its exhibits and facilities in the decades since. The zoo at Grassmere opened in 1990.

History

Nashville Zoo originally opened to the public in Cheatham County. The city of Nashville, bound by the will of the Croft sisters to maintain their South Nashville property as a nature center following the closure of the Grassmere Wildlife Park, offered to let the zoo relocate there; under then-Mayor Phil Bredesen, Nashville Zoo agreed to take over management of the Grassmere site. Nashville Wildlife Park at Grassmere opened to the public under Nashville Zoo management, and the zoo later closed its original Cheatham County location to focus all development at Grassmere. The Jungle Gym, a 66,000-square-foot playground built with the help of thousands of volunteers, opened as the largest community-built playground in the United States, and the site was later renamed from "Nashville Wildlife Park at Grassmere" to "Nashville Zoo at Grassmere."

Subsequent decades brought a steady string of new exhibits and infrastructure: the Unseen New World exhibit, a renovated Historic Home open for tours, an Entry Village with new entrance, gift shop, and restaurant, a barn beside the Historic Home anchoring a Historic Farm, and Critter Encounters as the zoo's first interactive exhibit. In 2000, Nashville Zoo helped found the Clouded Leopard Consortium with zoos worldwide, including Smithsonian's National Zoological Park and Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, based at Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo, to build sustainable captive populations of clouded leopards and study wild populations in Southeast Asia; early research there determined that male cubs need to meet future mates by six months of age and that hand-rearing improves breeding success. Around the same period, zoo staff began a conservation program for the Haitian Giant Galliwasp, a burrowing skink-like lizard from a narrow range in Haiti, traveling there to collect founding animals for a captive reserve population.

The 2000s and 2010s brought the Hyacinth Macaw exhibit, the Gibbon Islands exhibit featuring siamangs and white-cheeked gibbons, the Bamboo Trail with clouded leopards, red pandas, rhinoceros hornbills, and lemurs, AZA accreditation, the 3.2-acre African Elephant Savannah, Lorikeet Landing, a Wild Animal Carousel, and the Giraffe Savannah, red river hog, and Alligator Cove exhibits. A nearly five-acre donation from CSX expanded guest parking, and Flamingo Lagoon opened soon after. More recent additions include the Wilderness Express Train, a relocated Cassowary exhibit, a $10 million gift from the city of Nashville, the Soaring Eagle zip line, a rebuilt Entry Village, Spider Monkey: Treetop Passage, a White Rhinoceros exhibit, Expedition Peru: Trek of the Andean Bear, the HCA Healthcare Veterinary Center, Tiger Crossroads, a Komodo Dragon habitat described as the largest in the Americas, a parking garage that increased capacity by 62 percent, and Leopard Forest. Most recently, the zoo opened a new South American multi-species habitat featuring capybaras, giant anteaters, crested screamers, and rheas living together.

Exhibits and habitats

The Jungle Gym is the zoo's signature play space, a 66,000-square-foot playground with a 35-foot treehouse structure, slides, swings, and a giant snake tunnel, plus Thisbe & Noah's Promise Park, a section built with a Nashville nonprofit to include equipment for guests with disabilities. The Grassmere Historic Home, built in 1810, anchors the Grassmere Historic Farm and is open seasonally for guided tours, with the surrounding farm grounds — including an heirloom garden and family cemetery — open year-round; a barn beside the home houses sheep, cows, and other farm animals.

Interactive animal exhibits include Lorikeet Landing, where guests can feed lorikeets in a walk-through aviary; a red kangaroo habitat where the kangaroos roam freely around a guest pathway; and an area with Galapagos tortoises, goats, and alpacas where guests can get close to more personable animals. The Bamboo Trail groups clouded leopards, red pandas, rhinoceros hornbills, and lemurs. Gibbon Islands houses siamangs and white-cheeked gibbons. The Chick-fil-A Adventure 4D Theater runs short multi-sensory films with effects like bubbles, mist, and wind, and is wheelchair accessible with reserved spaces.

Rides scattered through the grounds include the Wild Animal Carousel, carved with 39 wooden animals by master carver Zsolt Hormay (who also worked on Disney's Animal Kingdom Tree of Life); the Wilderness Express Train, a short, trackless ride through wooded terrain aimed at younger children; and the Soaring Eagle zip line, which carries riders 110 feet above giraffe and rhino habitats before a 28-mph descent, with a minimum height requirement of 42 inches.

Animal highlights

Nashville Zoo lists at least 352 species on its website, with 3,736 individual animals in its care. Its published species list spans large mammals such as the Sumatran tiger, Amur leopard, clouded leopard, Andean bear, and Southern white rhinoceros; primates including the black-and-white colobus, De Brazza's monkey, Mexican spider monkey, and multiple lemur species; birds like the hyacinth macaw, rhinoceros hornbill, saddle-billed stork, and several flamingo species; reptiles and amphibians including the Komodo dragon, Gila monster, alligator snapping turtle, and Panamanian golden frog; and farm and domestic animals such as Highland cattle, Juliana pigs, and miniature donkeys housed at the Grassmere Historic Farm. The zoo notes it is the most prolific producer of rhinoceros hornbills in the United States and maintains a genetic reserve population of Haitian giant galliwasps, a burrowing, skink-like lizard from a narrow range in Haiti.

Conservation and programs

Conservation runs through much of Nashville Zoo's public messaging. More than 35 cubs have been born at the zoo since 2009, and staff describe themselves as the first institution to successfully breed hellbenders using biotechnology and the first to produce an externally fertilizing salamander using cryopreserved sperm. The zoo has surveyed and monitored loggerhead shrikes in Middle Tennessee since 2013, has worked to pioneer giant anteater husbandry and help write a species care manual, and breeds Puerto Rican crested toads for release into protected habitat in their native range. It participates in a head-start program for alligator snapping turtle hatchlings and has, since introducing co-parenting in 2016, seen higher chick survivability in an unnamed species. Locally, the zoo has led work to restore and protect crayfish habitat in Nashville in partnership with multiple agencies.

Nashville Zoo also participates in a number of AZA Species Survival Plan programs, which coordinate breeding across zoos to keep captive populations genetically diverse and demographically stable, and co-founded the Clouded Leopard Consortium in Thailand to support both captive breeding and field research on wild clouded leopard populations.

Planning your visit

As listed on the zoo's website, seasonal hours run 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. from March through mid-October and 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. the rest of the year; the zoo is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, though it may close early for special events or inclement weather. Ticket prices vary by date, with youth ages 2 to 12 priced $4 less than adults and children under 2 free; parking for non-members costs $10 per vehicle. Attraction tickets for the carousel, train, zip line, and lorikeet feeding are sold individually at $1 each, or as an $11 unlimited day pass covering rides and feedings. Group rates apply for 20 or more tickets purchased together, and military members receive a discount off general admission with ID.

Dining options include the Quills Cafe & Grill across from Gibbon Islands, the Screaming Gibbon Pizza Kitchen, Fat Cow Creamery for coffee and ice cream, and the seasonal Snake Bites/TN BBQ Depot near the Jungle Loop, along with carts and kiosks throughout the grounds. Manual and electric wheelchairs, along with strollers, are available to rent on a first-come, first-served basis near the entrance, and personal mobility devices are always welcome. The zoo does not currently offer printed maps, directing guests instead to its free app for an interactive map and keeper talk schedule. Nashville Zoo is a member of the All-Access Inclusion Network and offers complimentary sensory packs, a sensory-friendly map, and an audio tour. Confirm current hours, prices, and any closures on the official website before visiting.