Zoo Atlanta started in 1889 when businessman George V. Gress bought up the assets of a bankrupt traveling circus and donated the animals to the city of Atlanta. The city then housed this menagerie of show animals (which included a black bear, a jaguar, a hyena, a gazelle, a Mexican hog, lionesses, monkeys and camels) in Grant Park, where the zoo remains today. After privatization occurred in 1985 through the efforts the Atlanta Fulton-County Zoo nonprofit organization, the zoo was renamed and underwent massive renovations as well as innovations like The Ford African Rain Forest in the late 1980s. In 1999, the zoo raised its public profile when it acquired a pair of giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, on loan from China. This is only one of four zoos in the country to showcase giant pandas and the only one to have twin pandas.
Recent updates have included “Boundless Budgies” (which houses free-flying parakeets that guests are permitted to hand-feed) and “Trader's Alley: Wildlife's Fading Footprints” (which focuses on species impacted by the international wildlife trade). In 2011, an adjacent series of exhibits, “Complex Carnivores,” introduced bush dogs, binturong and fossa. For added recreation, the zoo also added “Splash Fountain” in 2013. Favorites include “The Asian Forest” (home to Asian small-clawed otters, giant otters, Reeves's muntjac, a Komodo dragon and Bornean and Sumatran orangutans) and “The World of Reptiles” (which houses hundreds of snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, frogs, toads and salamanders from around the world). A rare Guatemalan beaded lizard was also hatched at this zoo in 2012. “Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian and Reptile Experience” that will ultimately replace the World of Reptiles is expected to open in 2015. After a day of animal watching, it’s nice to know there are Choice Hotels near Zoo Atlanta which make it easy for you to wind down in calm and peaceful accommodations. Book a room with us today.