Ellen Trout Zoo

About Ellen Trout Zoo

The Ellen Trout Zoo is a zoo in Lufkin, Texas, owned and operated by the City of Lufkin. The zoo's website gives the address as 402 Zoo Circle, Lufkin, Texas 75904, and the telephone number as 936-633-0399. Wikipedia reports a footprint of 15 acres, a collection of about 700 animals, and roughly 150,000 visitors a year. A 2018 regional travel article describes over 800 mammals, birds, and reptiles, so collection counts vary by source and date.

Friends of Ellen Trout Zoo, abbreviated F.O.E.T.Z., provides funding for expansion and renovation projects, according to Wikipedia. The zoo is named after Ellen Trout, the mother of its founder.

History

According to Wikipedia, the zoo was established by Walter Trout after he received a 500-pound hippopotamus as a Christmas present in December 1965. The hippo, named Hippie, was boarded at Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo in Monroe, Louisiana, until a hippo pen was completed in Lufkin eighteen months later. The zoo officially opened on June 17, 1967.

The zoo's own history page presents the hippo story as a legend and gives another version: in the early 1960s Walter Trout, president of Lufkin Foundry and Machine Company, formed a committee to promote a zoo for Lufkin, originally intended to house native East Texas species. According to that page, a friend of Trout's, C.B. Wentworth of Philadelphia, arranged with committee members to donate the hippopotamus, which arrived in a crate from the Dallas Zoo with a Christmas card. The zoo was built beside a small lake on the north side of Lufkin and was given to the city when it opened.

Educational programs began in 1977. Since 1989 the Lufkin Kiwanis Club has contributed to zoo projects; Wikipedia reports thirteen completed projects with over 3,200 volunteer hours and donated materials.

Larger exhibits followed. In 1999 the zoo opened Maasai giraffe and white rhinoceros exhibits, and in 2002 it opened a Nile hippopotamus exhibit with viewing above and below the waterline. Hippie's original pen became a koi pond exhibit. In 2007 a hippopotamus named Pancho died of an intestinal blockage caused by a swallowed rubber ball, which Wikipedia says was likely introduced by a visitor. On November 9, 2023, a female southern white rhinoceros named Paddy died at age twenty-eight. In April 2024 a male rhinoceros named Bwana was transferred to San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and in May 2025, KTRE reported the public debut of Chitabe, a 13-year-old male transferred from Lion Country Safari in Florida.

A historical exhibit at the zoo features Angelina County Lumber Company Engine number 110.

Exhibits and habitats

The City of Lufkin's zoo page highlights hippopotamuses, giraffes, and rhinoceroses, and the zoo's website offers a Tiger Cam. The 2018 travel article lists white rhinoceroses, Malayan tapirs, Maasai giraffes, and free-roaming peacocks.

Wikipedia's longer species list includes De Brazza's monkey, jaguar, Jamaican fruit bat, Galapagos tortoise, Fly River turtle, bontebok, emu, raccoon, Bennett's wallaby, sulcata tortoise, nene, bay duiker, Malayan tapir, spectacled owl, Chilean flamingo, toco toucan, white-faced saki, cotton-top tamarin, American alligator, Chinese alligator, Nile crocodile, Siamese crocodile, North American river otter, southern white rhinoceros, bobcat, clouded leopard, lion, Malayan tiger, and Masai giraffe. Collections change; the zoo's website has announced the death of Rajah, a long-time Komodo dragon resident.

Conservation and programs

Wikipedia says the zoo takes part in Species Survival Plans for nearly 50 species, including rhinoceroses, the Bali mynah, and the cotton-top tamarin. Education programs include Wildlife on Wheels, which brings in-classroom programs on endangered species, animal adaptations, taxonomy, and rainforests to elementary students; school programs at the zoo; teacher workshops; university internships; and curriculum supplements. In summer the zoo offers a Junior Zookeeper program for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders and a Zoo Safari program. The zoo's website lists Friends of Ellen Trout Zoo, volunteer opportunities, internships, the Zoo Tots program, and Zoo Safari Summer Camp.

Planning your visit

As listed on the zoo's website, the zoo opens at 9 a.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m. and closing at 5 p.m. The city's page gives directions from North Loop 287, exiting at Martin Luther King and turning left onto Zoo Circle, and says parking is available along streets and in Ellen Trout Park lots, with buses using Expo Center parking. The zoo's website links to a schedule for the Z&OO Railroad, a passenger train whose tracks loop around the zoo and its lake. The Lufkin Host Lions Club, which bought the current engine in 2004, posts the railroad's operating schedule on its website. Ticket details are on the zoo's website.