A Visit To The Woodland Park Zoo

I spent the morning of October 2nd at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. 

I had previously attended weddings at this zoo (of people, mind you... though an animal wedding would be awesome) but had never really toured the place... until now.

With my Oregon Zoo membership card, I was able to get half-price admission to the WPZ, which was already in its "off season" and had lower prices than during the summer anyway. Admission plus parking came to around $12 total. 

Once inside, I got a map and began to plan my route. I quickly realized that this zoo is big! According to zoos.wanderbat.com, the WPZ is 92 acres (compared to the Oregon Zoo's 64 acres.) While some exhibits were clumped together, others felt very spread out. I did a lot of walking that morning.

I was glad I'd grabbed a map, because the pathway system at this zoo is tricky. Signage isn't very clear on most paths, and there are a bunch of little trails that sometimes made me feel like I was in a labyrinth. I understand that they want to spread out the visitors (away from one main path, where it might get crowded) and make the zoo more nature-esque, but...

...come on. The city of Venice was easier to navigate!

But of course I saw a lot of animals.

There were a couple of interactive exhibits, including "penguin feeding," which, for $5, allowed you to throw some fish into the penguin pond, and an aviary where you could feed birds seeds off a stick for a buck. The particular aviary where this was occurring was not an ideal place to hang out, as nearly every pathway had a tree overhanging it, every tree had a bird, and nearly every bird had already eaten and was now all about nature's calling. (I got out of there quickly.)

All in all, I spent about two and a half pleasant hours at the Woodland Park Zoo and visited pretty much every exhibit during that time. On this Sunday morning in early October, it wasn't very crowded. I had a good time looking at the variety of animals that live there, and would someday like to visit this zoo again.