Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A desert park, a founder’s gift and a herd of oryx offer several ways into the story of the Phoenix Zoo.
On this page
In Papago Park
The zoo lies in Papago Park, among red rock buttes. It opened there on 21 November 1962 as the Maytag Zoo, and took the name Phoenix Zoo in 1963.
Today it covers 125 acres, with about 2.5 miles of paths across four trails.
The Arabian oryx
From 1963 the zoo kept the World Herd, a breeding herd of Arabian oryx. After the species died out in the wild in 1972, oryx were returned to Oman from 1982, and most wild Arabian oryx today descend from Phoenix Zoo animals.
The zoo is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and takes part in Species Survival Plans for 29 species.
A zoo that keeps changing
The zoo is run by the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation, a non-profit organisation. Its newest habitat, Big Cats of Arizona, for jaguars and mountain lions, opened in April 2025.
This history belongs to the place, its animals and the people who care for them. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
