June 30--Somehow in the long and careful planning for its all-new Hamill Family Wild Encounters attraction, Brookfield Zoo left out a warning sign:
"Caution: Tippi Hedren May Want to Think Twice Before Entering."
The potential issue for the star of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" is the attraction's aviary, where hundreds of parakeets fly about and flock to your arm when you hold up a seed-encrusted stick.
"You get the sticks and they're all over you," said curator Glenn Granat. "It's great."
Yes, great. It's probably better, though, when you are not the only visitor holding a stick and when you, perhaps under the influence of a recent "Jurassic World" viewing, can't stop thinking, "Birds are dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs."
Billed as the largest indoor parakeet aviary in North America, it's like a butterfly garden turned up a few notches, both in terms of the intensity of the experience and the place of the resident animals on the evolutionary ladder.
The bird house is only part of why this new corner of the west suburban zoo is called Wild Encounters. The $11 million area, which opened Wednesday in the 3-plus-acre space of the former Children's Zoo, likes to let visitors get close to the animals. Think Stingray Touch, but above sea level.
Zoo-goers can wander in a corral stocked with Nigerian dwarf goats, impish little farm beasts not immune to the charms of a chewable shoelace.
They can attend the frequent displays of "ambassador animals," visitors from other parts of the zoo, such as a boa constrictor or a small African wild cat, brought in for demonstrations in the area's central plaza. "Here comes the serval," said a voice over the loudspeaker during a preview visit.
Or, in the exhibit's coup de grace (non-bird-lover edition), visitors can walk among the wallabies. More than 20 of the smaller kangaroo relatives hop around in an enclosure that lets people in, too, and will soon be adding more wallabies plus emus, the world's second-largest bird.
"The only thing with emus," said Granat, "is, did you ever meet a 'close-talker'? That's what they are."
So big birds that get close, little birds that land on your arm, goats from Africa and wallabies from Australia. Add in reindeer (European and North American arctic), alpaca and llamas (South America) and the highly photogenic red pandas (Asia), and you've got a menagerie that covers most of the world's continents while providing a very child-friendly, zoo-within-a-zoo experience.
Asking an additional $5 from adults, $3 from children, Wild Encounters is Brookfield's first new exhibit since Great Bear Wilderness opened in 2010. Likely up next for the zoo is a replacement for Baboon Island, closed in Sept., 2013. Firm plans have not been announced, but zoo executives have talked about wanting to build a primate exhibit that includes interactivity with guests, possibly through touch screens.
The Children's Zoo, which closed in early 2013, dated back to the 1950s and spotlighted a farm-like environment. Some of its traditional role, catering to the youngest zoo-goers, had been taken by the more recent Hamill Family Play Zoo.
But boards from the Children's Zoo's iconic red barn have been saved in Wild Encounters. Refinished, they make up the wall that greets you upon entering a new building, the Bramsen Animal Ambassador Pavilion, that houses bathrooms and an event space.
That building is more about people. The animal part of Wild Encounters puts the enclosures in a kind of circle around the central plaza. Almost all of the existing trees were incorporated into the design so that -- except for the brightness of the signs -- it doesn't feel like a new area waiting to reach maturity.
The reindeer, which will also be brought out from time to time, Granat said, have misting fans to help keep them cool in summer. The red pandas, meanwhile, have their own sort of giant bonsai tree, handmade by Brookfield workers with automatic feeders built unobtrusively into the branches. (Its construction was chronicled in these pages.)
As for the wallabies, they can "can jump over 25 feet," a sign says. But zoo staff are confident these animals won't make the blind leap over the perimeter fence and into an adjacent parking area. That could lead to a much more uncomfortable sort of wild encounter.
sajohnson@tribune.com
'Hamill Family Wild Encounters'
When: Open daily
Where: Brookfield Zoo, 8400 W. 31st St., Brookfield
Tickets: $5 adults, $3 children (prices over general admission); 708-688-8000 or http://www.czs.org
