Oglebay Good Zoo - Inside Habitats

 It is safe to say that no two Zoos are alike.  But of all of the zoos I've visited, I would say that the Oglebay Good Zoo in Wheeling, West Virginia is perhaps the most interesting one yet.  Oglebay [pronounced O'-gul-bee, NOT O'-gul-bay] is not just a zoo, though it is still a zoo.  It sits in a publicly held, privately developed Park with 4 golf courses, a luxury hotel and wonderful restaurant, a lake with fishing and kayaking, cabins to rent, a public garden, two museums, an adventure park, hiking and biking trails, multiple picnic areas,  and a zoo.  It is collectively one of if not THE gem of Wheeling.  As part of the whole complex, the zoo takes up a meager 30 acres of the total 1,650.  

As zoo's go, the Oglebay zoo is a modern zoo with a unique and poignant origin story.  In 1971 a young boy of seven named Philip Mayer Good died and his family pledged a significant sum to have a new zoo created within the Oglebay Park complex in his memory.  In conjunction with this event, the nascent organization called the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums which is 1966 was formed to become the professional branch affiliate of the National Recreation and Park Association was meeting to discuss its future.  The result?  The AAZAP became the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) breaking away from the NRPA and located its Executive Offices at Oglebay Park, Wheeling, West Virginia, within the future home of the Oglebay Good Zoo.  The Zoo broke ground in 1972 and opened to the public in 1977.  Subsequently, the AZA offices were removed from a member institution site and are now located in Silver Spring, Maryland.

My visit to the zoo was curated by a dear friend.  We started out with a lavish breakfast at the Wilson Lodge.  I ordered the Avocado Toast.  The description sounded interesting, healthy and not heavy.  What I got could have fed a family of three!  For those who love excess, this is the place to have breakfast!

Once fortified we drove over to the zoo and arrived just as it was opening.  As an entity, there are basically two parts to the zoo.  One is comprised of the habitats that exist within and against the main entry building.  The other are the mostly exterior habitats that you encounter a long the irregularly circular pathway that extends from the back of the entry building out and through the woods until is returns back to the same.  The up and down of the pathway is a moderate impact exercising experience, and you have a moderate opportunity to see animals.  As I have followed the zoo over the years online, I have noticed a higher than average turn-over of animal species.  While the zoo demonstrates commitment to some of its animals and their SAFE/SSP programs like their cheetahs, others with less pressing concerns have come and gone.

Once you enter the main building you have a spacious lobby, and generous Gift Shop and an amazing set of stairs to take you down to the ground level on the back of the building.  This level is home to several habitats with a mix of smaller mammals, reptiles (including an albino American Alligator--purveyor of good luck for the simple price of staring at it...), amphibians, and a beautiful Scarlet Macaw.  Some of the interior habitats connect to exterior ones as well.

The very first habitat to greet you is hope to a little colony of Golden Lion Tamarins.

GOLDEN LION TAMARIN

Leontopithecus rosalia

BURMESE PYTHON

Python bivittatus

SCARLET MACAW

Ara macao

Oglebay Good Zoo is home to two species of Tamarin.  Tamarin are New World monkeys whose evolution and fate very much mirrors that of their Madagascarian Old World Lemur cousins.  Like Lemurs who evolved to inhabit very specific and relatively small spaces on the Island of Madagascar, Tamarins did the same in the southern coastal jungles of Brazil.  As a result, it doesn't take much to completely upset their delicate balance and threaten their existence as a species.  And though they are so much smaller of stature than Lemurs, just like Lemurs, they are so charismatic and quickly charm the heart of anyone who spends even a modicum of time with them.

The size of the colony at the Oglebay Good Zoo allows for one to observe more nuanced social intercourse between its members.

COTTON-TOP TAMARIN

Saguinus oedipus 

RED PANDA

Ailurus fulgens

The Good Zoo is also home to two Red Panda's; an older and younger female.