Pittsburgh Zoo Looking Ahead To New Exhibits After Success Of 'The Islands'

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – It's an exciting time at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

It's working on several new exhibits, and the zoo says people are flocking to see what's already opened.

Since "The Islands" exhibit opened last summer at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, zoo officials announced Wednesday more than 1 million visitors have come to see it.

"It just shows the wonderful regional impact the zoo has here in Pittsburgh," said Dr. Barbara Baker, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

"The Islands" exhibit features all endangered species from Philippine crocodiles -- the most endangered crocodile species in the world -- to the beautiful clouded leopards, the not-so-beautiful warty pigs and the hungry Galapagos tortoises.

Now the zoo is looking forward to the next phase of development with a new exhibit that will be called "Jungle Odyssey." It will have a zipline, water features, tropical plants and, of course, animals.

"We're going to have pygmy hippos. We haven't had hippos here at the zoo for a very long time, so we're gonna have pygmy hippos," Baker said. "We're going to have giant anteaters, which are just absolutely fabulous animals, and we want to breed them here at our zoo. We're going to have ocelots from South America, used to actually be here in North America as well. And we're going to have capybara, the largest rodent in the world."

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But the "Jungle Odyssey" won't be the end of the new exhibits at the zoo.

"Then after that is our conservation solarium, which is a major reptile and amphibian area," Baker said. "And then after that will be our mountains exhibit, which will have a wonderful new exhibit for our snow leopards, which we've bred here at our zoo in the past."

And the zoo says it's all thanks to generous donations from several local foundations, which have given $14 million so far to the wildlife legacy campaign.

"So it will be very intriguing and very active here at our zoo," Baker said.

The new "Jungle Odyssey" exhibit should open sometime later this year.