If you are visiting the city of New York then one of the most iconic attractions is the Central Park Zoo. The zoo has gained this status through a number of appearances in celebrated and popular literature such as J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, in Robert Lawson’s Mr Poppers Penguins and more recently the animated Madagascar films.

Zoo

Zoo

The zoo is relatively small, covering just 6.5 acres and is actually part of a group of four zoos and the aquarium which are integrated. There has been a zoo in Central Park since the 1860’s when it was opened as a menagerie and became the city’s first official zoo. There were several developments throughout the 20th century but it was the renovation that took place during the mid-1980’s which totally transformed the zoo from housing animals in cages to fully naturalistic and interactive environments that you see today.

The zoo consists of three primary areas; polar, where there is the polar bear pool and the cooled penguin room. A temperate area and tropical area which has an indoor rainforest with fruit bats, an ant eater exhibit and leaf cutter ant colonies. The zoo is also home to several endangered species including red pandas, tamarin monkeys and thick billed parrots. The zoo also made history in 2009 when it displayed a snow leopard, making it one of the very few places in the world people were able to see this severely endangered animal.