Brookfield Zoo

Brookfield Zoo Review

Spend the day among nearly 3,000 animals at this gigantic zoo. The highlights? First, there's the 7½-acre Great Bear Wilderness exhibit, a sprawling replica of North American woodlands for the zoo's population of grizzlies, polar bears, bison, Mexican gray wolves, and other creatures. It's the largest exhibit built in the zoo's history. Be sure to watch the polar bears swim from the popular underwater viewing area. Monkeys, otters, birds, and other rain-forest fauna cavort in the carefully constructed setting of rocks, trees, shrubs, pools, and waterfalls of Tropic World, a simulated tropical rain forest. At the Living Coast you can venture through huge glassed-in passageways to see sharks, rays, jellyfish, and turtles swimming by. Daily dolphin shows are a favorite even for adults. Walruses, seals, and sea lions inhabit a rocky seascape exhibit. Don't worry if you don't want to trek around the grounds—you can hop aboard a motorized safari tram ($4) in warm weather or the heated Snowball Express tram (free) in the cold. During the winter holiday season, the evening Zoo Lights shows are a treat.

The two best educational exhibits are Habitat Africa and Swamp. In Habitat Africa you can explore two very different environments. See such tiny animals as klipspringer antelope, which are only 22 inches tall, and rock hyraxes, which resemble prairie dogs, in the savanna exhibit, which also has a water hole, rock formations characteristic of the African savanna, and termite mounds. If you look closely in the dense forest exhibit, you might be able to find animals like the okapi. The Swamp is about as realistic as you would want an exhibit on swamps to be, with a springy floor, push-button alligator bellows, and open habitats with low-flying birds vividly demonstrating the complex ecosystems of both Southern and Illinois wetlands. For hands-on family activities, check out the Hamill Family Play Zoo ($3.50, children and seniors $2.50), where kids can learn to care for nature by playing zookeeper, gardener, or veterinarian. The Children's Zoo ($2, children and seniors $1) includes a petting farm, excellent animal shows, and the Big Barn with its daily cow and goat milking and weekly wool-spinning demonstrations. Watch the dolphins show off and act silly at the Seven Seas Dolphin Show ($4, children and seniors $2.50).