Visit the four continents of the world without setting foot on a plane, at this zoo that has made a friendly, spacious home for each its many residents.
Brookfield Zoo, sitting out in the western fringes of Chicago, aimed to be a different sort of zoo from the start. The second zoo to be built in Chicago, it took another tack to its Lincoln Park cousin, close to the city centre. It is bigger, with more space for its animals. And over the last few years, it's gone 'organic' – its animals and plants are grouped together into natural ecosystems. So when you come here, forget caged animals and labels – you get to experience deserts, oceans, rain-forests and savannah, with all the wildlife that lives in them.
The Zoo was built in 1934. And rather than using concrete and cages, it made the best use of its 87 hectares to create large enclosures for its animals, separated by moats and ditches. It quickly became popular, especially after it became the first zoo to exhibit pandas in 1936. It was also the first zoo to create a dolphin exhibit, and the first to recreate a steamy tropical jungle under a glass roofed enclosure. And it continues to innovate today – you can even catch long-dead dinosaurs brought to life, via the magic of animatronics. But the stars are the live animals.
The Great Bear Wilderness brings you closer to the lives of America's largest hunters, the Grizzly Bears – at turns fierce, intelligent and cute – but always curious. A window onto the Antipodes is opened through Australia House, where you'll find emus, wombats and kangaroos, in what is billed as an outback adventure. Brookfield Zoo also has a Tropic World, home to chattering monkeys, parrots, gorillas and orang-utans and Stingray Bay, where you can reach out and touch an amazing shoal of manta rays.
But Brookfield doesn't just show off its animals. It's trying to save them too, devoting much of its time and money to conservation efforts. That help isn't always one-way, though. Brookfield Zoo is the place where the tender, caring side of gorillas made world headlines, back in 1996. Binti Jau was a lowland gorilla who looked after a child, who had fallen into her enclosure. She then carried him to rescue. Brookfield Zoo – it really is a showcase for the good that can come when animals and humans get together.
