Henry Doorly Zoo

From Alliance, NE to Papillion, NE.	The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument
The Henry Doorly Zoo, located at 3701 South 10th Street, is a zoo in Omaha, Nebraska. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and a member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA). The mission of the zoo is conservation, research, recreation, and education.Today, it is considered by many to be one of the top zoos in the United States; in May 2004, it was voted by Reader's Digest as the best zoo in America. As of October 2004, the zoo had 130 acres (0.53 km²), more than 17,000 animals; 962 species; 276 species of birds and 1626 specimens; 184 species of mammals and 2025 specimens; 181 species of fish and 7600 specimens; 176 species of reptiles and 598 specimens; 103 species of invertebrates and 5000 specimens; 42 species of amphibians and 487 specimens; 44 endanged species (listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Animals), and; 7 threatened species. The zoo originally began in 1894 as Riverview Park Zoo. Four years later it had over 120 animals. In 1952, the Omaha Zoological Society was created with aims to improve the zoo. In 1963, Margaret Hitchcock Doorly donated $750,000 (approximately $4.5 million in 2005 dollars). In doing so, she stipulated that the zoo be renamed in memory of her late husband, Henry Doorly, chairman of the World Publishing Company. Union Pacific helped the zoo lay down 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of track in 1968 with the inaugural run of the Omaha Zoo Railroad made on July 22, 1968. The Henry Doorly Zoo, like most zoos, is not an amusement park, although it does have two rides that circumnavigate the zoo and a carousel.

	The Scott Aquarium	A school of fish.	Jellyfish - Marla really liked these. She kept talking about how Marlin and Dory went through them in the movie Finding Nemo.

A huge glass geodesic dome. Three different desert areas are in it.	This stone model of the earth is held up by the water and will spin in the same way and on the same axis as the earth (when no one is forcing it to go a different way that is).	She got a little wet.	But her shirt dried fast.

Very pretty birds.	He's cute.
		Checking out the pond.
Wallabies		Talking to the finches.

Monkey exhibit
Outside the Hubbard Gorilla Valley	There is a building that winds through the Gorilla Valley.	You can get very close to the gorillas.
Oh, no! It's cracked!	These two kept wrestling.	An older male would come over and break it up when it got out of hand.	Shorter than a lemur, taller than a DeBrazza's Monkey
Time for a snack.	Peafowl were all around the picnic and concession areas.	A very sleepy polar bear.
Mark and Marla went for a ride on the Carousel.
	The Cat Complex		Beautiful
Marla had her own map of the zoo that she kept in her backpack. Here she is getting it out to check which way to go next.
We went past the polar bears again on day two of our visit. They were both swimming this day.
	The train goes around the whole zoo. It has two stops where you can get off and on.	It is a steam engine and is rather noisy.
Our conductor.
Coloring in the Wild Kingdom Pavilion.			Inside of the Lied Jungle.
Fig tree.
A wood and rope bridge.		Vines to swing on.
They recreated jungles from Asia, Africa and South America in different sections of this building.		The whole place was gorgeous.
The walkway goes behind this waterfall.	More vines.
Entering the South American jungle.
In my (Adrienne's) opinion, the best part of the zoo was the Kingdoms of the Night exhibit. Unfortunately, we could not get any pictures of it. Underneath of the Desert Dome is the nocturnal exhibit. When you enter it you start walking through caves with stalagtites and stalagmites and a seemingly bottomless pond full of blind fish. There are caves on the sides that are full of bats, naked mole rats, aardvarks, bush babies and other creatures that only come out at night. But the best part is the swamp. It is the bayou at night. You walk over the water on floating wooden decks with rope handrails. The water has fish and frogs and baby alligators. Their website says, "The world's largest indoor swamp is located under the Namibian sand dune of the Desert Dome . Experience the 160,000 gallon, 1/4 acre mysterious swamp with a floating boardwalk. It features a Trapper's Cabin, a beaver lodge, cypress trees, and 30 swamp animal species in barrier free habitats." The beaver lodge is really neat. One of the walls is glass and you can see the beavers inside. I had no idea that they were so big. They were twice the size that I thought they would be. There was also a white alligator? crocodile? that was really cool. Marla wanted to stay and watch the regular colored one that was floating in the water. They were very close to the deck. http://www.omahazoo.com/exhibits/index.asp?page=exhibits/kon.htm