Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park

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Chattanooga Zoo


Location	Warner Park, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
Land area	7 acre (28,300 m²)
Accreditations/ Memberships	AZA
Major exhibits	Himalayan Passage
Website

The Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park, formerly the Warner Park Zoo, is a small, 7 acre zoo located in Warner Park in Downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and has been featured on the popular television show Ultimate Zoo on Animal Planet.

[edit] Exhibits and Projects

The most notable exhibit is the Himalayan Passage, which houses the zoo's Red Pandas. The Himalayan Passage is a 9,000-square-foot (840 m²) indoor/outdoor exhibit built at a cost of $568,000, which is large compared to the zoo's $750,000 dollar annual operational budget. Himalayan Passage includes the largest indoor Red Panda exhibit in the world, despite the Chattanooga Zoo being one of the smallest zoos accredited by the AZA. In 2006, the Himalayan Passage was expanded to include habitats for Snow Leopards and Hanuman Langurs, an Asian primate.

The $2.1 million dollar Gombe Forest exhibit is home to the zoo's Chimpanzees.

The zoo is currently undergoing a five-phase, $12 million dollar Master Plan that is transforming the zoo into a premier zoological facility. In the last 10 years, the zoo has expanded from a meager 1.5 acres to its current size of 7 acres. When the current Master Plan is complete the zoo will have reached 12 acres in size. The Master Plan includes further implementation of new exhibits and expansion of the animal collection to specifically include the additions of African Penguins, Gibbons, and Komodo Dragons. New species, not yet determined, will also be added to the zoo's South American, African, Asian, and North American zones. In addition to new exhibits, a new front entrance complex will open in early 2008, and will include a new parking lot, gift shop, restroom facility, concessions pavilion, and carousel.

[edit] Conservation

The Chattanooga Zoo is actively involved in conservation efforts, specifically the AZA's Species Survival Plan which manages the breeding, conservation, and welfare of endangered species throughout AZA accredited facilities in North America. Since 1998, the zoo has been a partner with the Zoo Conservation Outreach Group/Fundacion Zoologica (ZCOG). ZCOG is an organization that partners with Latin American zoos and assists with conservation intitiatives in Latin America, specifically the saving of the Amazon Rainforest.

The zoo also contributes to the Center for Ecosystem Survival, which conserves coral reefs and rainforests through on-site donations.

The Chattanooga Zoo also rehabilitates all injured or orphaned native wildlife for the Chattanooga metropolitan area. The zoo does this with private funding in lieu of the Chattanooga Nature Center closing its rehabilitation center.