“THE BAAAABBBYYY!” shrieks a woman behind me, pushing a stroller, jolting me out of my quiet study of Gila, the ABQ BioPark Zoo’s four-month-old baby gorilla. I spin around to make sure the woman’s infant isn’t the cause. As she apologizes for startling me, I just smile back, because, honestly, the sight of Gila is scream-worthy.
I turn to look for my friend Elizabeth Bachner, a longtime midwife who had suggested we swap our usual happy hour haunt for the zoo as part of our ambitious 2026 self-improvement agenda (get more exercise, eat less junk, file taxes on time—you know, big transformations). On this gloriously warm late-February morning, Elizabeth isn’t listening to me anyway. She is deep in conversation with an animal keeper about the gorilla’s mating habits and birthing process.
“So is there, like, just one stud for all the ladies?” she asks.
That’s the thing about the zoo. Whether you’ve got kids in tow or not, it does something sneaky. You show up thinking it’s a nice place to spend an afternoon, and suddenly you’re asking questions like Columbo.
A new gorilla habitat is expected to break ground this fall.
As it turns out, breeding decisions at accredited zoos aren’t made casually. They’re governed by the Species Survival Plan, a nationwide network of Association of Zoos and Aquariums member zoos that collectively manage genetics, population health, and breeding recommendations for hundreds of species.
“The animals’ well-being is our number one mission here,” says Erin Dougher, an animal wellness and behavioral training manager at the BioPark Zoo.
New Mexicans have a long-standing, almost familial relationship with the ABQ BioPark, which includes the zoo, aquarium, botanic garden, and Tingley Beach. Collectively, it’s the most-visited attraction in the state, drawing more than 1.5 million visitors annually. But if you haven’t been to the Albuquerque attractions in the past few years, a lot has changed. The 63-acre zoo, which opened in 1927 as the Rio Grande Zoo, has invested more than $78 million in new exhibits, renovations, and expanded animal habitats since city voters approved a one-eighth-cent gross receipts tax in 2016.
Erin Dougher, animal wellness and behavior training manager, puts the animals first.
“People wanted world-class facilities,” says guest experience manager Allyson Zahm, who became our unofficial zoo guide for the day. But the public surveys, which began in 2014, revealed something deeper. “They wanted the BioPark to stand for something: conservation of New Mexico species and genuine education for our community.”
The first project built squarely with this in mind was Penguin Chill, which opened in 2019. The chilly 42-degree habitat holds 35 penguins—gentoo, king, and macaroni—in a 75,000-gallon main tank with wraparound underwater viewing and glass flooring. Just past the penguins is my favorite part: a room designed like the hull of a research vessel sailing through the Antarctic islands, where you can pick up a phone and choose your own adventure with a recording of a real scientist in the field.
“We wanted to expose our guests to their world,” Zahm says, “because understanding why penguins matter starts with understanding the world they live in.”
A family visits the zoo’s Reptile Building, which received habitat updates in 2025.
PULLING OURSELVES AWAY FROM watching the penguins torpedo through the water like tiny tuxedoed acrobats, Elizabeth and I make our way to the zoo’s crown jewel: the Asia Habitat, a $35 million addition that won the AZA Exhibit Award, the zoo equivalent of an Oscar. Opened in October 2023, the 4.5-acre complex features key animals like a Malayan tiger, a snow leopard, Steller’s sea eagles, siamangs, and orangutans, like Ruby.
Making eye contact with us, Ruby scales a sky-high green pole, jumps, and grabs a nearby rope, swinging grandly with one arm dangling. “She loves to show off,” Zahm jokes. Not far away, a tiny three-year-old Sumatran orangutan named Bulan practices his balance on a fallen trunk.
The habitat’s design philosophy is what zoo architects call “functional naturalism”: vertical space, rotating territories, sensory complexity. Animals traverse interconnected spaces—one day, orangutans swing overhead, the next, a Malayan tiger crosses the elevated rainbow bridge. Multistory habitats mean 360-degree sight lines between species, just like in the wild.
“It’s a big shift from old-school zoo design,” Zahm says, “where three-sided enclosures meant animals saw nothing but human faces all day.”
Penguins swim in Penguin Chill’s 75,000‑gallon tank.
And Asia is just the beginning. Australian Shores opened in 2024, bringing a free-flight lorikeet experience where the birds, including laughing kookaburras and blue-faced honeyeaters, may land on your arms, shoulders, and, yes, your head. There’s also an area for little (also called fairy) penguins, the world’s smallest, as well as several species of ducks native to the Land Down Under.
A second phase—an Australian-outback-inspired 1.5-acre habitat that broke ground in January and is expected to open in early 2027—will include current and new species, like wombats, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, emus, and wallabies, along with Aboriginal cultural art and artifacts.
Opened in March, Running Wild: Cheetahs and More is the $2.4 million reinvention of the former Catwalk—created around a simple idea that animals thrive when they have choices. Interconnected flex habitats let cheetahs, mountain lions, ocelots, and coatimundis move, explore, and just be.
But the gorillas’ home, originally built more than 40 years ago, might be the most glorious extreme makeover to come. The $22 million project—expected to break ground in late fall and take roughly two years—will transform the current space into two expansive areas with vertical climbing structures, water features, bamboo forests, and year-round indoor and outdoor spaces. Think Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, but in Albuquerque. “Gorillas need a lot of variety,” affirms Zahm. “So we’re recreating their natural habitat.”
Visitors can feed hippos as part of the zoo’s behind‑the‑scenes tour.
MAISY, THE SIX-MONTH-OLD HIPPO calf named by citywide popular vote, is at the top of my must-see list. So we plan our arrival for 2 p.m.: Hippo happy hour.
Senior zookeeper Bricker Thietten presides over mama Karen and her calves—heads tipped back, enormous jaws wide open for romaine lettuce. “Only salad for a 3,000-pound animal?” I ask. Just a snack, he says.
“Can we see my soul sister animals now?” Elizabeth pleads, with a playful grin. As we walk toward the elephants, a golf cart loaded with fruits, veggies, and hay zips past us. We chase it down to find senior zookeeper Debra Vasquez, who calls out: “Come on over for a diamond gem!” Elizabeth and I look at each other. We like diamonds. We follow.
Not all the changes at the BioPark are physical. In 2023, the zoo formally launched Guest Experience Moments, or GEMS, turning chance keeper encounters, like Vasquez’s spontaneous VIP elephant invitation, into something informal but intentional. “This new generation of keepers is incredibly passionate about saving animals,” Zahm says, “but they also know they need to share that passion.”
Rozie the elephant in the Asia Habitat.
Just then, Rozie, the 35-year-old Asian elephant, appears—majestic, enormous, and beautiful. We toss apples, sweet potatoes, and broccoli her way from a safe distance. “Rozie is special,” Vasquez says. We stand in awe, too, watching her gracefully eat, trunk curling to place the apple in her mouth.
That impulse to spark connection extends even to the BioPark’s most unlikely residents. “Sometimes the most vilified animals make the best ambassadors,” Zahm tells me as we approach a small enclosure with two caretakers and loads of kindergarteners on a field trip.
I grew up thinking skunks were nuisances—until I met Boo Boo, a rescued skunk turned animal ambassador (spray glands removed), who sips prickly pear water and does tricks like a golden retriever. Ten minutes with Boo Boo and I am officially a skunk convert.
But the bigger conservation work happens largely out of public view: 79 Mexican gray wolf pups bred here have helped revive a population that once dipped below 100. Nearly a million Río Grande silvery minnows have been released into the wild over 23 years. And the construction behind the aquarium? That’s the Science, Health and Aquatic Research Center (SHARC), opening this summer, where injured sharks and sea turtles can be rehabilitated, fish can mature before their public debut, and the aquarium can fine-tune its ocean in the desert to keep its residents at their healthiest.
Guest experience manager Allyson Zahm began working at the zoo as a teenage volunteer.
THE FOLLOWING WEEK, ELIZABETH and I reconvene at the botanic garden, about two miles from the zoo.
Not 20 steps into the 30-acre park, the Lebanon and Beyond gardens stop me. Opened last fall, the first dedicated Lebanese garden in North America is stunning. We walk among stone pillars, inhale citrus blossoms, and take a seat on sienna-colored lounge chairs next to a water feature with aqua and gold tile work glittering in the sunlight. “This looks like the lobby of a chic boutique hotel,” Elizabeth observes.
We linger for a while before heading toward Heritage Farm. The 11-acre space hits our olfactory senses before we see it: hay, manure, fresh-tilled earth—the exact smell of my dad coming in from feeding the cows. Reopened last spring after a $14 million refresh, the farm is agricultural conservation dressed up as a really good time (including a mud-pie-making station). “The redesign is a living portrait of how New Mexico’s shared cultures shaped its farming,” Zahm explains later, “like grinding stones, acequia irrigation, and Three Sisters planting alongside modern heritage crops.”
The zoo’s Asia Habitat earned national recognition for its open spaces and rotating territories.
Animals are a highlight here too. Navajo-Churro sheep, Highland cows, and other farm favorites roam the grounds. But these animals aren’t here just because they look like cuddly stuffies—which they do. They’re listed on the Livestock Conservancy’s registry of endangered breeds. Garden beds are part of the conservation through line too. Rare seeds are planted, tended, harvested, and preserved every season.
And those harvests go everywhere. In summer, the farm supplies the grab-and-go cafes across the BioPark with hyper-local ingredients such as tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and broccoli. In fall, the farm’s original 1920s red barn is busy with activity, transforming orchard apples into cider served throughout the park. Other produce feeds the insects and zoo animals. (Fun fact: The chimps love the green chiles.) It’s a full circle, according to Zahm. “It feeds the ecosystem—for both humans and animals.”
Spotting a massive lizard sculpture made of tree stumps, Elizabeth plunks down and waves me over to join. I watch kids scramble up a nearby stone sculpture to reach a giant bird’s nest at the top and scream as if they’d just discovered the best-kept secret in Albuquerque.
Kangaroos gather for a feeding in Australian Shores.
And there are more secrets where that came from—like the new Tadpole Springs splash pad behind the aquarium. The must-see attractions and calendar events keep growing, because as Zahm puts it: “Every visit should feel like the first one.”
For me, at least, it does. I’d been to the zoo and gardens dozens of times. But following Elizabeth through gorilla-mating inquiries, surprise elephant encounters, and Lebanese garden lounging, I realize the BioPark gives you back exactly what you bring to it. Bring a stroller and a five-year-old, and it’s the best Saturday you’ve ever had. Bring an inquisitive midwife, a date, or just your own curiosity, and it’s something else entirely—something that may make you spontaneously shout too.
Lanee Lee spends much of her time at the ABQ BioPark chasing her daughter through the penguin exhibit and playing hide-and-seek in the Fantasy Garden.
ANIMAL ATTRACTIONS
Indulge your wild side with these diversions.
DO.
The ABQ BioPark offers behind-the-scenes animal and garden tours. The zoo has keeper-led animal encounters with some of the park’s most interesting animals, including big cats and elephants. At the botanic garden, the Heritage Farm Tour takes you inside the barn doors to meet Highland cows, Navajo-Churro sheep, and American paint horses. Tickets start at $50 per person (bioparksociety.org/tours); proceeds go directly back to caring for the animals you encounter. Or plan your day around BioPark Connections—complimentary scheduled activities to learn and connect, like the penguin or hippo feedings and keeper-led talks. The centerpiece of the BioPark Aquarium is a 285,000-gallon shark tank with a 38-foot viewing window. This year, baby stingrays born on-site are gliding along the tank floor, new bamboo sharks have moved into the Shallows & Shores habitat, and juvenile lined seahorses just debuted in the Pacific Coral Reef. At Tingley Beach, three ponds are stocked with rainbow trout and channel catfish for anglers of all ages.
STAY.
Across the street from the botanic garden, El Vado Motel’s 1937 Route 66 motor court has been revived with bright doors, vintage neon, and a courtyard that hums by evening with string lights, food vendors, and music drifting through the warm desert air. If people watching is your thing, Arrive Albuquerque opened last spring in downtown with a hip bar and lounge that extends to a Zia-shaped pool. Or spend the night at the Painted Lady, a funky, art-filled bed and breakfast where every room tells a different story and breakfast feels like the conversation (and strong coffee) you didn’t know you needed.
EAT.
The zoo’s food has had its own glow-up with brand-new menu items this year. At the Turquoise Stand, don’t miss the crispy chicharrones, served with red and green chile. Over at Cottonwood Cafe, the Caesar salad pizza sounds odd until you try it. In the Africa area, the fruit bar muddles fresh seasonal fruit into drinks, including spiked versions for adults. Hungry after the botanic garden adventure? Head across the street to El Vado’s courtyard for one of its micro-food-stall options—from pad thai to pineapple upside-down cake—all served from converted motel rooms.
SHOP.
“I axolotl questions,” reads a T-shirt found in the aquarium and zoo gift shops. The ABQ Zoo just welcomed its first axolotl in five years—a critically endangered amphibian native to the ancient lakes of Mexico City—and the merch has ensued. Think pink plush axolotl stuffies, water bottles, books, and tees that will make even non-zoo people jealous. Fair warning: It’s nearly impossible to leave empty-handed.
