The Oregon Zoo, formerly the Washington Park Zoo, is a zoo in Portland, the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Downtown Portland, the zoo is inside Portland's Washington Park, and includes a narrow-gauge railway that connects to the International Rose Test Garden inside the park. Opened in 1888 after a private animal collector donated his animals to the City of Portland, the 64-acre (26 ha) zoo is now owned by the regional Metro government.
A member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, it has successful breeding programs for California Condors and Asian elephants. The zoo also boasts an extensive plant collection throughout its animal exhibits and specialized gardens. During the summer it is host to a concert series, and in the winter produces a holiday light show viewed from the train. The Oregon Zoo is Oregon's largest paid attraction, with more than 1.6 million visitors in 2008 to 2009.
Read more about Oregon Zoo: History, Other Attractions, Where in The Zoo Is Carmen Sandiego, Nearby Attractions
Famous quotes containing the words oregon and/or zoo:
“When Paul Bunyan’s loggers roofed an Oregon bunkhouse with shakes, fog was so thick that they shingled forty feet into space before discovering they had passed the last rafter.”
—State of Oregon, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)