Fort Worth Zoo: Texas's Oldest, Consistently Among the Best

The Fort Worth Zoo is the oldest continuously operating zoo in Texas, and it started the way a lot of great institutions do: modestly, with animals that happened to be available.

In nineteen oh nine, following a flood that destroyed an earlier collection of animals in the area, city Park Superintendent George Vinnedge secured a new site and assembled an opening collection that included one lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock, and a few rabbits. That was the whole zoo. Admission was free and the grounds were maintained by the city.

Over the following decades the collection grew steadily. In the early nineteen twenties, visitors donated coins at the gate to help purchase two American bison and a zebra. By mid-century the zoo was an established civic institution, though aging infrastructure and declining attendance began to strain its finances. In nineteen ninety-one, with city support shrinking and animal housing badly outdated, a nonprofit association took over day-to-day management under contract with the City of Fort Worth. Since then, the association has raised more than one hundred eighty-six million dollars from private sources for new habitats and renovations.

Today the zoo spans sixty-four acres and is home to more than seven thousand animals representing over five hundred species. It consistently ranks among the top five zoos in the nation and draws more than one million visitors each year. One measure of its reputation is its conservation record: the zoo leads international efforts to protect the Jamaican iguana, the most endangered lizard in the world, and received the prestigious International Conservation Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the year two thousand for that program. It participates in more than one hundred twelve Species Survival Plans and runs conservation work in more than thirty countries.

The most recent expansion, a four-phase one hundred thirty million dollar project funded entirely through private donations, opened its African Savanna phase in spring two thousand eighteen, featuring a mixed-species exhibit with a giraffe feeding deck and an underwater hippo viewing window.