Second Chances at the Queens Zoo
The Queens Zoo, in Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, erected on the site of the 1964 New York World's Fair, was the first to be designed as a cageless zoo. (The dome of the aviary is from the 1964 World's Fair.)
A visit on February 16, 2021, was inspiring, given how many of the animals in the zoo are rescued animals, unable to survive in the wild. Two bald eagles, unable to fly, live out their second lives after surviving being hit by a a plane and a hunter's gun. Two puma siblings were orphaned in Utah and now have a second home in Queens. Three Canadian lynx cubs were born in May 2020, part of a successful breeding program. One of the coyotes was found wandering in Central Park and now gets to live safely in Queens. A great horned owl with one eye resides in the zoo, as do sandhill cranes, pudu, Andean bears, and lots and lots and lots of ducks.
One of the pumas at the Queens Zoo. The pumas were orphaned in Utah and now live in Queens.
Many of the mammals in the Queens Zoo are rescued, endangered or breeding. This group of photos includes sea lions, a puma, lynx, a coyote, an Andean bear, bison and elk. There is also a not-very-good photo of a pudu, but the best I could get on this day.
I was especially taken with the ducks. Among the ducks I saw were red-breasted mergansers, hooded mergansers, wood ducks, scaup, redheads and goldeneyes.
The sandhill cranes were so beautiful against the snow.
The bald eagles are both rescued raptors, one hit by an airplane and one shot. They could not survive in the wild, and seem to have a pretty good life in Queens. One of the great horned owls seems to have lost an eye. There were also a cattle egret and a black-crowned night heron in the aviary.
