Welcome to the houston zoo recreation everyone! In anticipation for more south american animals to be added to the game and the the personal desire to build a good quality warm climate north american zoo, let's travel to the state of Texas and see what the houston zoo has to offer. An ambitious masterplan with many modern developments built and possibly still to happen brings us a zoo with a wide range of animals with key focus on south america, africa and native texas animals. Quite the change from my usual set of recreations where cold animals are almost always the key theme with large indoor buildings needing to house these animals.
For anyone concerned with the developments of the calgary zoo, I will be building these zoos alongside each other. The calgary zoo has proven to be a long term project where the earliest date of completion is summer 2025 almost all focusing on cold weather animals with large expansive indoor buildings. I really don't want to wait until like 2026 to build a south american animal area so this is where the Houston zoo comes in, each zoo will have its own slot for example one week or 2 is focused on calgary zoo then the next week or 2 is for houston. Providing me and everyone interested in my recreations 2 flavors - a cold climate zoo and a warm climate zoo. This likely will mean each project will take longer but the calgary zoo is noway near completion, as of writing this, it is on episode 15 out of roughly 85!
Simple zoo overview:
- Zoo Location - Houston, Texas, USA
- Zoo setting - Urban
- Zoo Size - 55 acres (222,000m2)
- Number of habitats - 58
- Animal Focus - South America, Africa, Native Animals
- Foliage type - Subtropical (Temperate + Tropical mix)
The zoo has 10 distinct zones throughout the zoo:
- Carruth Natural Encounters
- Indoor small habitat building with fish, otters, sloths and other tropical animals. Outside connected to the building is a meerkat habitat.
- Likely the inside is not going to be built due to the small habitat sizes not going work with the game but the exterior and meerkat habitat will.
- Galapagos Islands
- The first ever galapagos themed zoo area in the world (so the internet tells me) with representative species showcasing the diversity of the volcanic islands. Animals like california sea lion and humboldt penguin represent their native galapagos species in regard to conservation efforts of the real animal. The only true galapagos animal found here is the giant tortoise.
- Unique features - Iguana habitat, Underwater tunnel for sea lions, deep sea ocean aquarium
The deep sea aquarium will feature lots of colorful fish, sea turtles, sharks, rays and large detailed coral reef scenery.
- Reptiles & Elephants
- Large habitat for multiple asian elephants with 3 distinct areas of their habitat linked by an indoor shelter building. This is a great elephant habitat but it is not naturalistic.
- Also found is a large reptile exhibit building with many different species of reptiles and amphibians.
- Birds of the World
- Pending completion somepoint in 2024, this area features 3 aviaries. A south american aviary features chilean flamingos, ducks and maybe some others.
- An african aviary has grey crowned crane, ibis, vultures, while a north american aviary features small garden birds.
- Likely both south american and african aviaries can become habitats not the north american since we don't have small birds ingame.
- There is also a beer garden beside the south american aviary called the flamingo terrace.
- Wortham World of primates
- Jungle loop area full of different kinds of primates. Orangutans, gibbons, debrazza monkey, patas monkey, lemurs, howler monkeys and tamarins can all be found here.
- A portion of the loop has an elevated boardwalk for a unique experience through the jungle trail.
- Texas Wetlands
- Native animals themed in a texas wetland area. American alligators, whooping cranes and bald eagles can be found in this modern area.
- A modern cafe called the cypress circle cafe is situated here and is the main zoo cafe since this is the heart of the zoo.
Lush wetlands will be the theme around the texas wetlands, natural barriers like these sticks stop the alligators swimming in the entire wetlands area. The habitat featured below is actually the bald eagle habitat where non-flying bald eagles live.
- South America's Pantanal
- Large south american area featuring all the south american animals one could need. There are 2 aviaries for south america here - one walkthrough savanna aviary with ducks and small birds, and another non walkthrough wetlands aviary which will be a habitat featuring roseate spoonbills, wood stork and ducks.
- The largest habitat here is the grasslands which is a mixed species habiat with - capybara, southern screamer, greater rhea, giant anteater, bairds tapirs and coscoroba swan.
- Other habitats include Jaguar, Blue thorated macaw aviary, Giant otter, black howler monkey.
A view into the naturalistic pantanal grassland habitat where rhea, tapir, swan and screamer can be seen.
- Children's Zoo
- There are 3 portions of the childrens zoo - Texas, Desert, Domestic
- Native texas animals like river otters, domestic turkey, white tailed deer and pelicans can be found in the childrens zoo. A forest themed boardwalk explores this area of the childrens zoo.
- The desert area has a bat cave, banded mongoose, and desert insect exhibits
- The domestic area has simple domestic yards with zebu, llama, kunekune pig and domestic goats.
- African Forest
- Large african habitats can be seen in the north of the zoo, a african forest trail gives us past 4 large habitats for savanna animals and primates
- The savanna part of the trail features masai giraffe and ostrich in one habitat with a giraffe feeding platform, and southern white rhino is the second part of the savanna portion.
- The primate forest trail features a chimpanzee habitat, and a mixed gorilla and red river hog habitat
- Felines, hoofed mammals & more
- The last part of the zoo is basically a mix of older habitats. As the name suggests it is mainly a mix of cat habitats and hoofed mammals.
- On the left portion of this area there is a row of zebra, spurred tortoise, bongo, blue duiker, okapi habitats. Across from them is a habitat for ankole cattle.
- An african corner features african lion, african wild dog and cheetah
- A bear grotto features black bear and komodo dragon funnily enough (not together obviously!)
- A row of small 'cats' habitats for clouded leopard, fossa, and ocelot
- The bigger cats area for cougar, malayan tiger and vultures (old jaguar habitat)
One of the older style bear grotto habitats, thankfully at least these are more spacious than the likes of the san diego bear grottos.
Example of one of african ungulate yard habitats.
Oh did I forget to mention basically all signs for the zoo especially animal info signs are both english and spanish? I can't speak a word of spanish so that will be fun
I can't guarantee a timeframe of update posts as the Calgary Zoo is still the priority to build for currently to get the first zoo file on the workshop, complex building starts straight away in the houston zoo so I will show update posts when I get the chance to build for this zoo.
