Our Visit To The Queens Zoo

Photo courtesy of law_keven

Last Saturday, December 6, 2008, started out as usual. I took my wife and older daughter to Chinese school. I made use of the 2-3 hours by reading and doing some excercises, not to mention a bite to eat from Carnation Bakery. I wanted to finish reading The Gargoyle, so I sat in the car to read for the first hour or so. I read up to the final chapter, but decided to stop. It was getting cold, I decided a bit of physical excercise would help. I walked to the nearby track field in front of the school and started doing my 8-lap brisk walk. When I finished all 8 laps, I felt warmer, and class was about to end for my wife and daughter.

My wife wanted to do something, so I suggested we visit the Queens Zoo. Since we were in Flushing, it was not very far away. We picked up some food and then drove to the Queens Zoo. Since it was my first time there, I got a little lost. After about 10 minutes of back and forth on the streets, I found my way down 111th street in Flushing, Queens. We found the parking lot that was adjacent to the zoo and parked there.

Until now, we have visited all the other NYC zoos, except the Queens zoo. We've been to the Bronx zoo, Central Park zoo, Prospect Park zoo, The New York Aquarium (where our 2008 zoo adventures all began), and now the Queens zoo. Its ironic that I've lived most of my life in Queens and this is the first time I have visited the Queens zoo.

Cost

Visiting the Queens zoo is not even that expensive. Adult admission is $6 and children's tickets are only $2. Children under 3 years get in for free, and seniors 65+ get in for $2.25. Admission includes a map of the zoo plus a red decoder card that helps explain what you are seeing at some of the exhibits. Since we are members of the WCS, our admission was free. I have mentioned it before but its worth repeating, I encourage you and your family to join the WCS. Membership will help enable your family visit the NYC zoos more often and also help fund the preservation of animals all around the world.

What You Will Find

So what animals can you find at the Queens zoo? Surprisingly, more than I thought I would find. The first exhibit we saw were the ducks. This stood out for me because I saw many mallard ducks that I'm used to seeing, but among them was one white feathered one. So I did what many people would do, I took a photo snapshot. We moved on to see what I thought was a bobcat, but it turned out to be a lynx. We visited some pumas, then noticed an exhibit about extinct animals, the dodo bird was among them. Next came an aviary that stood out, it was a spiraling path that led up, twisted around like a pretzel and then came back down. You can view many species of birds while walking along this spiraling path, watch out for bird droppings! We also saw pumas, bears, sea lions, among other animals. Then we walked over to the domestic animals section to do some feeding, the animals, not ourselves. We left the zoo happy but cold, which may have been the trigger for my current condition.

Location

The Queens zoo is located at 53-51 111th Street in Flushing, NY 11368. It is open 365 days a year, you can find the hours of operation on this page. As of today, it is open 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Do you love animals? Would you like your children to experience the joy of seeing animals in real life, not just in books and museums? I encourage you to join or contribute to the WCS. If you are a member of other wildlife groups, feel free to chime in and make yourself heard in the comments. I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for visiting, follow me on Twitter for additional links to tips and tricks. If you would like to contribute to Frugal NYC in any way, articles, ideas, posts, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else, feel free to contact me via email. Click here to add this to your RSS reader.