"It's Officially "America's Favorite Zoo"!" Top 5 Page for this destination Tulsa Things to Do Tip by BixB

In 2004, Microsoft, in a bid to promote its "Zoo-Tycoon 2" computer game, held a competiton via internet voting to select "America's Favorite Zoo." Thanks to visitors' deservedly high regard for the park (and not in small part to clever efforts by the Tulsa Zoo staff encouraging supporters to stuff the voting) the Tulsa Zoo took the top honors!

Tulsa calls its zoological park not only a "Zoo" but also a "Living Museum" and the designation is appropriate. The Tulsa Zoo has done a great job of combining naturalistic live animal habitats with archaeological and cultural art and artifacts that help visitors learn about the entirety of the earth's environments. For instance, North America is presented through four seperate buildings that showcase both animal species and human cultures unique to a region. In the "Arctic Tundra" building alone you can view a polar bear swimming inches from your face, enter a full-size reproduction of an Igloo furnished with tools of historic Eskimo life, and experience an earthquake.

The premier exhibit at the zoo has to be the "Tropical American Rain Forest." This massive building provides an immersion experience into a piece of Central American jungle. Towering trees, creeping vines, and mayan ruins; free-roaming marmosets (small monkeys), acouchis (looking like long-legged guinea pigs), lizards, frogs and various birds; and clever enclosures for more dangerous animals like jaguar, caiman and anaconda combine with the humidity to get you as close to the rainforest in Tulsa as you'll ever be without a long plane ride.

The zoo's newest attractions are a terrific black-footed penguin colony and a full-scale recreation of a portion of an African Maasai village. Of special interest to parents and their little ones are a nice children's zoo with an interactive goat yard, a huge and imaginative playground, a miniature train, and the "Conservation Carousel" where you ride on unique hand-carved creatures such as a seahorse or shark.

Address: 6421 E. 36th St. North, Tulsa, OK
Directions: The Tulsa Zoo is in Mohawk Park, north of the Tulsa International Airport. From Highway 11 or I-244 take the Sheridan Road exits and go north to 36th Street. Turn right (east) on 36th and the park entrance will be on your left.
Phone: (918) 669-6600
Website: http://www.tulsazoo.org