The Observation Deck

Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo that is.

While people descended on Downtown Lakewood for the annual Arts Festival, Deb and I headed to our annual trek to the Zoo. It was a great day, lots of fun, and even though some of the animal displays still feature stressed out animals, with incessant pacing, other exhibits were amazing.

Here are a couple images, this thread will be moved to global later.


The first exhibit reminds me of old zoos. Small industrial, but the leopard uses all of it and seems to be enjoying it.


Monkey Island now down to just a handful of monkeys, but they are always enjoyable.


While the grizzlies and black bears looked happy, The Himalayan Sun Bear seemed miserable.

But then came "Tiger Passage" and it was like the zoo of the future, it would be great to see all animals enjoy their surroundings like this!


Many windows allow young and old to get up close and personal.


The extremely large 4 area Tiger Passage allows the cats many chances to get up close and personal, and walk through and over visitors.











More photos at: http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/photobl ... ssage-2016

Check it out, go today!

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Having lived in many places in the US, and been fortunate to travel a lot both domestically and internationally, we are fortunate to have a great zoo in Cleveland. It is definitely in the top 10 that we have visited and appreciate the opportunities it provides all who visit. We were there on Sunday and once again amazed at the diversity in visitors and the excitement everyone had over the exhibits. The new tiger passage is amazing and fits in well with the theming.

If we could change anything, the bear exhibits now are a bit sad/dated and would be great to do something about the Snow Leopard fencing (hard to see through it). However, overall, we love the zoo.

Matthew Lee wrote:Having lived in many places in the US, and been fortunate to travel a lot both domestically and internationally, we are fortunate to have a great zoo in Cleveland. It is definitely in the top 10 that we have visited and appreciate the opportunities it provides all who visit. We were there on Sunday and once again amazed at the diversity in visitors and the excitement everyone had over the exhibits. The new tiger passage is amazing and fits in well with the theming.

If we could change anything, the bear exhibits now are a bit sad/dated and would be great to do something about the Snow Leopard fencing (hard to see through it). However, overall, we love the zoo.

Matthew

We are lucky to have everything the Metro Parks bring. BUT...

They could do better, and if you remember the old zoo, with 10 seals, not 2, lions not one, Monkey Island bristling with activity, it hurts.

I am sure it comes down to money, but while Tiger Passage is nice, though showy, they has to be a way to give animals more room and better experiences.

But it something every Lakewoodite and Clevelander should do yearly.

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We are extra lucky to have the biggest "kid" and gentle "tiger" in Lakewood, i.e. Jim O'Bryan.

He is the rarest breed known is these parts.

real nice photos, I thought I was on an African Safari, thanks for sharing, I haven't been to the zoo in 50 years, my family used to take us swimming there, they had a great big round swimming pool, I wonder if it's still there.

jackie f taylor wrote:real nice photos, I thought I was on an African Safari, thanks for sharing, I haven't been to the zoo in 50 years, my family used to take us swimming there, they had a great big round swimming pool, I wonder if it's still there.

Hi Jackie, I don't think the swimming pool is there anymore (but may be wrong). However, it is such an awesome place to go that you will have a great time, even if the pool is not there anymore.

Brian Essi wrote:We are extra lucky to have the biggest "kid" and gentle "tiger" in Lakewood, i.e. Jim O'Bryan.

He is the rarest breed known is these parts.

Brian, agreed. We may all disagree on many things but Jim does a great job balancing everything out (pardon my ending a sentence with a preposition).



Matthew

good are the pictures taken