Safari North Wildlife Park — Attraction in Baxter

Went here with my mother, niece and nephew, and was excited for it, as I never had been to this place before. The giftshop was nice, and I appreciated the fact that due to heat, they were not doing camal rides today. I was also excited for the viriety of the animals, and those with endangered status. I also loved the educational bits and gimmicks for the kiddos.

However my intial excitement quickly went downhill, and I left feeling quite disheartened and depressed. I have taken collegiate courses on enclosure design. Just for reference. I've got a degree in Animal sciences.

Many of the enclosures were barren in terms of enrichment, and water features, if not water in general. The Fishing Cat enclosure, which boasts facts about aquatic features the cat has, like webbed paws, didn't have any sort of water, aside from the pail it drinks from. The crow and african gray parrot enclosure were far too small, and lacked any sort of toy/puzzel/mental stimulation. These are two of the smartest bird species. They need things to do, and flight space.

Enclosures I initially thought were better, turned out to be overcrowded. For example, the black bear enclosure, while being a decent set up and size for one, had three in it. The caracle enclosure was much too small for two, who were hissing, snarling and pacing the length of their limited space. More than two eagles typically do not cohabitate, and need space, Etc.

Moreover there seemed to be a lack of shade and appropriate shelter in many of the enclosures. Many animals were showing signs of heat stress, and had only above ground, wooden hutches to retreat too. These could be improved if they were slightly below ground level, at least it would be a bit cooler for them, and provide a retreat from veiw. African Servals should not be panting from heat stress.

Some animals had visible, bleeding sores, or some sort of malcondition as well.

Overall I see a lot that could be, and should be improved, and while I respect what is trying to be done, bringing non-native animals to northern Minnesota, and providing experiences to families, I think this zoo is trying to do too much, with too little. Too much veriety, attraction gimmicks and endangered animals, Too little space, too little water, too little enrichment...

I went to this Zoo on a Sunday in September, 2022. I honestly have a few complaints that made my visit rememberable for the wrong reasons. First of all, it concerns me that this zoo is open until October. Many of the animals were obviously freezing and many of them were shaking and huddling together to stay warm. It was very heartbreaking to see this. I feel that they are open and making these animals freeze in the fall weather. Second, the girl working the parakeet house was horrible. I work as an avian abuse advocate and as someone who speaks on avian rights, I was angry at the employee working the parakeet house. I walked in and it was very busy. She made it obvious she didn’t want to be there. We went up to her and purchased popsicle sticks with millet and seeds on them to feed the birds. While we walked towards her, there were little boys who were hitting and trying to pinch the little parakeets who were obviously in distress from this action. Their parents were nowhere in sight. I would assume it’s the responsibility of the employee in this exhibit to ensure the birds are safe AT ALL TIMES. Instead, she just sat there and watched, and made it obvious she was watching, these two little boys abusing these birds. After about 30 seconds of her not saying anything and with no parents in sight, I walked up to the boys and told them to not do those things because they will hurt the birds. I find it extremely disheartening to see someone with complete disregard for the safety of these birds. As an avian advocate, specifically for parakeets/budgies, I will be making a formal complaint about her and will not support this establishment again. Do better. Make sure your animals are safe. Kids WILL hurt these innocent animals. I will not recommend this zoo to anyone and will let others know about what I experienced. I was looking at my photos and have a picture of the worker who was allowing these birds to be abused by children. Disgusting and such a disgrace. It makes me sick to think of how they are treated when she is working. It made me want to stay there just to make sure they...

Wow!!! Wasn’t expecting a zoo quite this good. What I liked was that you didn’t have to walk so far to see everything. Sometimes zoos burn me out cause you walk all over looking for animals and half the time their either so far away you can’t even see them or they’re hiding somewhere. Here, you see everything. We were there are on extremely hot and humid day and still got to see all the animals out and about. We got to feed the giraffes carrots for $5. We got to ride the safari train for $5. Those two were worth the extra. The rides are a ripoff at $5 a ride though if you ask me. And I hate things that are overly expensive like that, and if you tell your kid no, not this time, the kid leaves feeling disappointed. So the expensive rides kinda rubbed me wrong for that reason because my kid was disappointed. But it ended up being a little more expensive in the end then I thought it’d be, but I still think it’s worth it because they had practically everything except elephants it seemed, and that might be the most animals I’ve actually seen in one zoo visit of all the zoos I’ve ever been too. So in that regard, it was awesome. They were short staffed you could tell, but they were friendly. Smaller rural areas, lotta high school workers. I saw some people complaining in reviews about service and treatment of animals and all I gotta say is 1) it’s mostly high school students, so cut them some slack, and 2) you could argue keeping wild animals captive is cruel, but you still go to see them, so it’s a little hypocritical. But all in all, I was pleasantly surprised. Plan on getting dirty, it’s very dusty with all the gravel, but I felt...