5 reasons we love the zoo - 03/15/06 - The Detroit News

5 reasons we love the zoo - 03/15/06 - The Detroit News: "5 reasons we love the zoo
But are Metro Detroiters willing to pay a tax to keep it going?
Maureen Feighan / The Detroit News

To put a regional zoo tax before voters, zoo leaders would have to get county boards' approval for the same ballot language in each county. The deadline to get a measure on the ballot in November is Aug. 29.

Under a policy approved in 1998, any new tax in Wayne County requires a 60 percent supermajority. Macomb and Oakland County require a simple majority.
1 The Arctic Ring of Life: The $14.9 million exhibit covers four acres and takes visitors on a trek to the North Pole. Visitors can look up through the 70-foot tunnel and watch polar bears swim by.
2 Matilda Wilson Free Flight Aviary: A lush tropical setting where visitors can see -- and hear -- more than 30 species of birds, including scarlet macaws, boat-billed herons and masked lovebirds.
3 The Butterfly House: Step into the tropics with hundreds of butterflies flitting about. The zoo gets a weekly shipment of 200-300 chrysalises, the pupa stage of butterflies, of up to 40 species.
4 Snow monkeys: The exhibit, renovated in the mid-1990s with trees, a waterfall and hot tub, is home to Japanese macaques or snow monkeys. They're a threatened species.
5 The Penguinarium: It was the first U.S. zoo to build a facility (in 1968) for penguins. The smell isn't always fun, but seeing the four species -- king, rockhopper, macaroni and blue -- is.