Happy trails Maruska's staff thought he had gone loco when he told them he wanted to build an authentic tropical rain forest on zoo grounds. We do, after all, have winters here and tropical animals don't do snow. Nevertheless, Maruska charged ahead. A memorial now stands on zoo grounds near where they died. Many animals we once took for granted are now extinct in the wild.
Some zoo animals get vacations off zoo grounds.
The zoo maintains an off-site breeding facility in rural Cincinnati. When it comes time to breed, some are sent away. The Cincinnati Zoo began wracking up historic firsts three years after it opened. The first California sea lion born in captivity was born here in 1878. Cincinnati is the first zoo in the world to maintain Crested Auklets in captivity.