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| - It has promise, but could be so much better. So much better.
The time I visited, there were way too many animals unavailable, too many obnoxious, unruly children (raise the price of admission, maybe?), and (some) employees apparently left a lot of their motivation to actually work at home, on their outstretched, unnaturally stiffened tube sock.
Highlights:
Giraffe feeding
For a nominal fee (5$ when I was there), one can feed these lovable, majestic creatures two biscuits, which are provided. Additionally, the personable staff at this section will tell you the whole life history of the particular animal you have fed. These animals -- giraffes and zoo staff at this section -- are among the best and top of class of any zoos I have visited thus far.
Monkey walk
For free, one can go inside an enclosure where small monkeys are running, swinging, and otherwise monkeying around.
Stingray petting
For a nominal fee (I cannot recall), one can get up close and personal (as close as Mandalay Bay's Shark Reef allows) and even pet/feed/whatever the stingrays. Seems like a highlight, although I would not know, since the staff at the pay booth refused to do their jobs because it was ten or fifteen minutes before closing. Did not realise it required arriving an hour early just to purchase an admission ticket to a small section. Note to Phoenix Zoo: Fire everyone at the stingray exhibit working the admission booth.
Wolves
The Phoenix Zoo has wolves. Some other zoos have them as well, but there they are used exclusively as companion animals to cheetahs and thus are not on exhibit to the regular paying patrons. In Phoenix, they have a relatively large enclosure which gives them room to run around, although the downside is that it affords them plenty of opportunity to find hiding places.
On an additional editorial note, I have to congratulate the Phoenix Zoo for their efforts on animal conservation. I read somewhere sometime ago that they took an endangered species -- on the verge of extinction -- and, successfully bred them to the point of being able to reintroduce them into the wild. I think this zoo has been around since the 1960s, so okay -- cool.
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