How do you improve a visitor’s experience in a zoo that’s already world famous? Can we find fresh ways to view our Zoo, integrate our conservation efforts and provide more fun and relaxing opportunities for children and adults? We can, and we’ve already started! Here’s a sneak peek at Phase I of our More than a Zoo campaign, the result of a $13 million investment and an eye to the future.

Madagascar
Thanks to the extraordinary work of its conservation scientists, Omaha’s Zoo now has the opportunity to showcase one of it’s’ most successful and intensive conservation efforts.

Soon visitors at Omaha’s Zoo will walk among rare and vanishing lemurs, bats, bugs and amphibians within the Madagascar Exhibit, one of the only such collections in the world.

The new Madagascar Exhibit will be located along the middle lagoon between Hubbard Gorilla Valley and the peaceful Garden of the Senses. Nestled into the hillside, a 17,000 sq. ft. building will include 6000 feet of holding space for animals. Nineteen exhibits both vast and intimate will house a world-class array of rare and endangered species including insects, fish, fossae, reptiles, and of course, lemurs.

The Madagascar Exhibit is a $10.6 million project and just over $8.6 million has been committed by individuals and foundations. Naming opportunities are available and start at $25,000. Commitments to the project can be paid over multiple years. Learn more about the Zoo’s work in Madagascar.

Madagascar renderings - Floor Map 
Madagascar renderings 


Aerial Skyfari
Skyfari opened in May 2009 allowing visitors an opportunity to take to the sky and experience the Zoo from an entirely different view.

Visitors are able to dangle their toes over popular exhibits like the Giraffe Veldt, Cheetah Yard, Garden of the Senses and Monkey Island, before alighting at a transfer terminal right inside the rhino enclosure!

Skyfari has 80 ski-lift style chairs riding a system built to carry eight hundred riders per hour in each direction, secured on towers rising up to forty feet. The nine-minute ride from terminal to terminal literally flies by.

The cost of Skyfari was $1.5 million and naming opportunities are still available.

Gifts of the following amounts will provide permanent naming opportunities and are a wonderful way to express your community pride for Omaha’s Zoo.

$10,000 - Skyfari chair (75 available)

$150 + - Engraved 4” brass medallion mounted on the terminal railing