The Henson Robinson Zoo in Springfield, Illinois is small, and probably only takes 1-2 hours for a full exhibit. Although it doesn’t have many of the larger animals that typically would draw you to a zoo, it does have some nice exhibits that make for an enjoyable visit.
Highlights:
- Naked Mole Rats – a trend amongst smaller zoos is having smaller, light-hearted engaging exhibits for kids. That definitely takes place here as they have a naked mole rat display in the admission area
- Otters – Another staple amongst small zoos, otters are playful and make for a run visit
- Lemurs – I absolutely love lemurs, and they have a couple different areas to view them at this zoo
- Pond – A nice deck overlooking the pond gives you the chance to buy feed for a quarter to throw to the turtles, fish, and ducks, as well as the nearby goats
- New Bear exhibit – After our visit in Summer of 2018, the zoo has added 2 bears from Alaska
Lows:
- Not very clean – unfortunately, this can be another commonality amongst small zoos; cleanliness suffered a bit here throughout the zoo
- Could use an aviary – there’s nothing wrong with a small, low-budget zoo, but usually they include some sort of indoor exhibit; the day we visited did have some scattered showers, so an indoor aviary or something to pass the time indoors would be helpful here
- Larger exhibits upon expansion – I’ll never be critical of a zoo for only having smaller animals – smaller animals can still be engaging and fun, and a zoo should never take on more than it can appropriately handle; but I would stress that if this zoo does continue to get some larger animals that they need to be sure to expand some exhibit so they have adequate space, as the bear exhibit seemed small (didn’t know at the time what was going in there) and some of the monkey also had cramped spaces
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