Great Plains Zoo

Great Plains Zoo and its collection

Great Plains Zoo, opened in 1963, is a zoo in Sioux Falls, United States.

The city and a zoological society run it jointly, with the city holding the land, buildings and assets and keeping up the grounds.

History

Senator Richard F. Pettigrew had specimens displayed around the city's parks between the 1880s and the 1930s, after which the municipal parks system took charge and put animals permanently in Sherman Park. A zoological society formed in 1957 and the zoo opened on 30 June 1963. A natural history museum on the site, since shut, showed 150 taxidermy mounts, 38 of them of vanishing species.

Exhibits

An Asian cat enclosure rebuilt in 2008 gives wide viewing of Amur tigers and snow leopards, and an enclosure for two eastern black rhinos followed in 2010. The old children's zoo became a sponsored farm area in 2009, Japanese macaques arrived in 2013 alongside a reworked entrance, education space and flamingo yard, and Bear Canyon, among the oldest habitats, was rebuilt in 2018. The eastern and southeastern yards became an Australian zone in 2019, adding Bactrian camels, singing dogs from New Guinea and sheep in a petting yard styled as a station.

What the venue says

• The zoo provides convenient parking directly adjacent to the main entrance.
• The grounds are highly walkable and flat. Wheelchairs, electric scooters, and strollers are available to rent on-site.