Abstract
The Ellen Trout Zoo is in Lufkin, in the part of Texas traditionally known as the "Piney Woods." However, this zoo's atmosphere is distinctly tropical (for most of the year, at least). The grounds are overgrown with exotic plants, and Gordon Henley, the long-time director, takes as great a personal interest in the maintenance of the palms and other specimen trees as in the animal collection.
The zoo started as a prank - Walter Trout, a local Captain of Industry got a hippopotamus for Christmas in 1965, from a fellow Director on the Board of Texas Utilities Company. Named after Walter Trout's mother, the zoo grew up around "Hippy," becoming well known for an unusual collection of reptiles and amphibians, as well as interesting series of birds and mammals.
Until the breeding male recently died, the zoo's prolific pair of West African Crowned Crowns were its most well known avian inhabitants, with descendants all over the country. More recently, the Ellen Trout Zoo has been especially successful breeding White-faced Whistling Ducks, inhabitants of the recently opened African area, and in September, 2003, its first Chilean Flamingo hatched. Among other birds in a collection of over fifty species are Red-breasted and Nene Geese, White-headed Piping Guans, Abyssinian Ground Hornbills (a personal favorite of General Curator Celia Falzone), Yellow-billed Hombills (exhibited by only six other U.S. collections), Spectacled Owls, Tawny Frogmouths, Leadbeater's Cockatoos, Hyacinth Macaws, King Vultures, Bali Mynahs, and Green Jays.
Houston Zoological Gardens
Ringed around by skyscrapers and somewhat formally laid out, the Houston Zoo may seem rather compact. However, it is difficult for serious zoo visitors to see all of its enormous and very diverse animal collection in a single day, and its bird collection alone can fill a day's visit. At well over 200 species, the bird collection is one of the finest in the world, and its breeding record one of the most remarkable. Among its world first successful captive breedings are the Golden-headed Quetzal, the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, and the Red Bird of Paradise. Its influential propagation programs for Cracids and touracos commenced more than a quarter century ago. Birds hatched over the last year-and-a-half include Roul Roul Partridges, Attwater 's Prairie Chickens (less than fifty in the wild), North American Ruddy Ducks, Nenes, Northern Pintails, Hooded Mergansers, Javan Rhinoceros Hombills, Siberian Hoopoes, Golden-headed Quetzals, Blue-bellied and Racket-tailed Rollers, Blue- Crowned Motmots, Guam Kingfishers (extinct in the wild), Guira Cuckoos, Red Lories, Quaker Parrots, White-crested Touracos, Western Gray Plantain-eaters, Mourning Doves, Luzon Bleedingheart Doves, Green-naped Pheasant Pigeons, Beautiful and Marianas Fruit Doves, Gray-Winged Trumpeters, Spotted Thick-knees, Hammerkops, Chilean Flamingos, Fairy Bluebirds, Beechey's Jays, Northern Green Jays, Collie's Magpie Jays, Emerald Starlings, Bali Mynahs, Sulawesi Grosbeak Starlings, Pekin Robins (from Hawaiian stock), Black-throated Cardinals, and Red-crested Finches. The hatching and assisted parent-rearing of two Golden-headed Quetzals in July, 2003 is particularly gratifying, as it is not only the first propagation in years, but the male was hatched at Houston in 1990.
Among the many rarely seen birds to be found in the extensive series of indoor and outdoor exhibits are Bluefaced Curassows (critically endangered), Lesser Borneo Crested Firebacks, Rothschild's Peacock Pheasants, Congo Peafowl, Ocellated Turkeys, African and Indian Pygmy Geese, Crowned Hornbills, Orange-breasted Trogons, Bluecrowned Lories, Rosenberg's Lorikeets, Giant and Fischer's Touracos, White-bellied Bustards, Red-crowned Cranes, Piping Plovers, Long-toed Lapwings, Northern and Southern Bald Ibises, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Andean Cocks-of-the-Rock, Magpie Shrikes, White-necked Ravens, Red and Lesser Birds of Paradise, Rufous-bellied Niltava, Chestnut-bellied Starling, Sulawesi Collared Mynahs, Cactus Wren, Black-crested Bulbuls, Amakihis, Green Grosbeaks, and Painted Buntings.
Moody Gardens
About an hour's drive from Houston, Moody Gardens, on Galveston Island, now...