Houston Zoo

About Houston Zoo

Houston Zoo is a 55-acre zoological park inside Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, known historically as the Hermann Park Zoo and the Houston Zoological Gardens. It opened on April 30, 1922, with 40 animals, and its collection has grown enormously since: the zoo's own reporting put its population at around 4,300 animals in 2026, representing 575 species as of 2024, with 2 million visitors in 2024 alone. The zoo's website currently lists at least 81 species by name. It has been managed since 2002 by the nonprofit Houston Zoo Inc. under a 50-year lease from the city, having previously operated as part of the city's parks department. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and belongs to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The zoo is organized into ecosystem- and region-focused exhibit areas built up over more than a century, from an African Forest complex to sections themed around the Galapagos Islands, South America's Pantanal, and Texas wetlands. Conservation runs through the collection: in 2026 the zoo reported 52 conservation projects across 17 countries, and its tagline, adopted alongside a 2018 fundraising campaign, is "See them. Save them."

History

Houston's first zoo opened in 1901 in Sam Houston Park but closed abruptly in 1906 when the city sold off its animals. The current zoo began in 1921, when the federal government gave Houston a bison named Earl from the Wichita Forest Reserve; he was placed in the newly developed Hermann Park, and the city built cages and appealed to the community for more animals. The zoo officially opened on April 30, 1922, and by 1925 it occupied a 34-acre fenced area with roughly 800 animals.

For its first decades the zoo operated as entertainment as much as education, with circus-style big-cat performances, alligator wrestling, and a nationally known collection of albino Texas wildlife. The Great Depression forced an admission charge in 1932 and left buildings to deteriorate, leading to escapes by a lion, a bear, and a chimpanzee before Works Progress Administration funding built a new lion house in 1937. In 1928 the zoo joined an early species-protection effort, receiving Galapagos tortoises from the New York Aquarium; three of those animals still live at the zoo today.

Mid-century growth added a new primate house, sea lion pool, elephant barn, reptile house, and small mammal house between 1950 and 1961, and the zoo hired its first veterinarian and curator in 1956. It earned accreditation in 1974, among the first institutions to do so. Community fundraising groups incorporated in the late 1960s enabled further growth, and captive-breeding work for conservation began in earnest in this period, including early successes breeding brown pelicans and St. Vincent Amazon parrots.

The zoo weathered safety and funding problems in the 1980s and 1990s, including the death of keeper Ricardo Tovar in a 1988 tiger attack and a 1999 city audit that found inadequate quarantine space and insufficient animal diets. The city hired Rick Barongi, formerly of Disney's Animal Kingdom, as director in 2000, and in 2002 operational responsibility passed to the new nonprofit Houston Zoo Inc. Since then the zoo has built a series of large "immersive" exhibits, including the African Forest (2010 and 2015), Texas Wetlands (2019), South America's Pantanal (2020), and Galapagos Islands (2023), and in 2022 celebrated its centennial. Its 2024 AZA re-accreditation earned a rare "100% clean" inspection score, only the eighth such result in AZA history.

Exhibits and habitats

The African Forest, opened in 2010 and expanded with its gorilla habitat in 2015, is home to Grant's zebra, white rhinoceros, red river hog, Masai giraffe, ostrich, chimpanzee, and western lowland gorilla; primatologist Jane Goodall toured it in 2010 and praised the chimpanzee habitat. Nearby, the Carnivores area houses African lions, painted dogs, cheetah, black bears, a Komodo dragon, an Amur leopard, a Malayan tiger, and cougars, including Shasta VII, the current University of Houston mascot.

The Galapagos Islands exhibit, opened in 2023, includes habitats for California sea lions, Galapagos tortoises, and Humboldt penguins, plus a walk-through aquarium with green sea turtles, sharks, and stingrays. South America's Pantanal, opened in 2020, displays the blue-throated macaw, jaguar, giant river otter, Baird's tapir, capybara, and giant anteater, along with the critically endangered blue-billed curassow. The Kathrine G. McGovern Texas Wetlands, opened in 2019 on the site of the former zoo duck pond, features the bald eagle, American alligator, and whooping crane. The Fondren Foundation Birds of the World, opened in 2024, spans three aviaries covering American songbirds, African savanna species such as crowned cranes and vultures, and a South American wetlands walk-through aviary of flamingos and ducks.

The McNair Asian Elephant Habitat, expanded in 2017, includes yard space, barns for cows and bulls, and a 160,000-gallon pool. Wortham World of Primates, the zoo's first immersive habitat when it opened in 1993, houses patas monkeys, howler monkeys, and white-cheeked gibbons across eleven open-air enclosures. The Reptile and Amphibian House, opened in 1961, is the zoo's oldest exhibit building, and the John P. McGovern Children's Zoo includes a goat yard, river otters, red pandas, and the zoo's Wildlife Carousel.

Animal highlights

Houston Zoo's website lists at least 81 species by name, while the zoo's own broader reporting puts its collection at 575 species and around 4,300 animals as of the mid-2020s. Signature residents include Asian elephants, western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, jaguars, cheetahs, Malayan tigers, and African lions, alongside rarer species such as the fossa, okapi, clouded leopard, and Amur leopard. The zoo's reptile and amphibian collection includes the king cobra, black mamba, green anaconda, and the Panamanian golden frog, a species central to its amphibian conservation work.

The zoo also maintains populations tied to its conservation programs, including Attwater's prairie chickens and Houston toads, both native Texas species raised for release into the wild, along with whooping cranes and the critically endangered blue-billed curassow.

Conservation and programs

Houston Zoo is an active partner in the AZA's Species Survival Plan program and its SAFE: Saving Animals From Extinction initiative. It has run a captive breeding program for the Attwater's prairie chicken since 1994, releasing more than 1,400 zoo-raised birds, and has taken part in Houston toad restoration since 2007, contributing more than 1.5 million eggs, over 8,000 tadpoles, and 277 toadlets in 2025 alone. The zoo has treated stranded or injured sea turtles since 2010, caring for 148 turtles in 2025.

In 2009 the zoo partnered with Baylor College of Medicine to fight elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, a disease that has killed many of its Asian elephant calves; the resulting mRNA vaccine was first given to a Houston Zoo elephant, Tess, in June 2024 and has since been shared with other zoos reporting similar success. The zoo's elephant breeding program has drawn criticism from animal rights groups including PETA and In Defense of Animals, which named Houston Zoo the worst zoo in North America for elephants in 2025; the zoo has defended its breeding decisions and vaccine research. Internationally, the zoo funds and supports partner organizations across Latin America, Africa, and Asia working on species including the Sumatran rhinoceros, Borneo elephant, black rhinoceros, and giant armadillo.

Planning your visit

As listed on the zoo's website, Houston Zoo is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last entry at 4:00 p.m.; hours can shift for special events, so check the site before visiting. The zoo does not operate its own parking lot, but free parking is available in the surrounding Hermann Park, and paid garage parking is available nearby in the Texas Medical Center and Museum District when the park lots fill. METRORail's Red Line stops near the zoo, with roughly a 10-minute walk from either the Memorial Hermann Hospital/Houston Zoo or Hermann Park/Rice University stations.

Online reservations are required for all non-member guests, and tickets use a "Flex Pricing" model that varies by date and time, with a 20% discount for children ages 3–12 and seniors 65 and up. The zoo offers strollers, wagons, manual wheelchairs, and motorized scooters for rent, and is a Certified Autism Center with sensory guides available for different areas of the grounds. Food and beverage locations operate throughout the zoo, including Jack's Cafe and Cypress Circle Cafe, and outside food and non-alcoholic beverages are welcome. Confirm current hours and ticket pricing on the zoo's official website before you go.