Mac Rating: 0.00 | Votes: | Date: 03/06/2026 14:31:00

On the eastern edge of central Phoenix in the historic Papago Park, the Phoenix Zoo is the largest privately operated non-profit zoo in the United States and one of the most heavily visited zoological gardens in the American South-West. The 125-acre zoo opened in November 1962, the brainchild of the Arizona businessman Robert E. Maytag (whose family owned the Maytag appliance company), and operates today as a private non-profit organisation under the umbrella of the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation. The zoo's collection includes more than three thousand animals representing some 400 species, arranged across four themed trail systems that wind around the central Papago Park lake. The Africa Trail, the largest of the four, recreates East African savannah habitats and houses lions, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, the celebrated mountain gorilla family and several species of African antelope. A particular favourite is the popular Giraffe Encounter, where visitors can hand-feed lettuce leaves to several giraffes from an elevated platform. The Tropics Trail recreates the world's tropical environments and houses orangutans, Komodo dragons, the celebrated Sumatran tiger family, Asian elephants, and a particularly engaging gibbon island. The Children's Trail focuses on smaller mammals and reptiles in a more accessible setting designed for very young visitors, with several interactive feeding and grooming stations. The Arizona Trail focuses on the wildlife of the surrounding Sonoran Desert, with displays of the celebrated desert tortoise breeding programme (the zoo's most significant single conservation achievement), Mexican grey wolves, bighorn sheep, the elusive jaguar and the wide range of native birds of prey. The zoo's flagship conservation success is the Arabian oryx, an antelope that became extinct in the wild during the 1960s. The Phoenix Zoo's captive breeding programme is widely credited with saving the species from extinction, with carefully bred and reintroduced animals now thriving in protected wild populations in Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. A dedicated education centre, a carousel, a small zoo train and a sea-life centre round out the offering.