5 things you don’t know about BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo

Let’s start with where it is.

You may think it’s in Baker, or in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish, but you’d be wrong.

The zoo is located within the city limits of Baton Rouge; Baker’s city limits are about one mile north of the zoo.

The zoo is 40 years old this year, so we decided to ask Director Phil Frost and Marketing/Development Director Mary P. Woods for some furry, feathery facts:

1. In a single year, the Baton Rouge Zoo’s hungry residents consume, among other things, 156,000 crickets and 520,000 mealworms.

2. The zoo has its own state-of-the-art veterinary hospital. Created in 1998, the George Felton Jr. Veterinary Hospital and its staff perform X-rays, surgeries, dental procedures and annual physical exams. The hospital has even administered chemotherapy to a jaguar and performed a caesarean section birth.

3. There has only ever been one black rhino born in Louisiana, and it was born in 2009 at the Baton Rouge Zoo. There were only three born in captivity that year anywhere on the planet.

4. Last year, 82,243 riders climbed aboard the zoo’s Cypress Bayou Railroad and clickety clacked around the zoo for a tour.

5. The granite globe water feature that welcomes zoo guests literally floats on the water, despite weighing more than two tons. It’s there to remind visitors they’re about to take a trip around the world.

Learn more at brzoo.org.