ABQ BioPark
A City Run Complex Of Four Sites Under One Organisation The Zoo, An Aquarium, A Botanic Garden And Tingley Beach Fishing Lakes Strung Along The Rio Grande In Central Albuquerque · Albuquerque, New Mexico
The ABQ BioPark is four things run as one: a zoo, an aquarium, a botanic garden and Tingley Beach, a set of fishing lakes, strung along the Rio Grande through central Albuquerque. The zoo is the oldest part, dating to 1927, and is a genuinely good mid-sized collection with elephants, big cats, a large primate section and a Mexican gray wolf pair connected to the reintroduction programme in the Gila. The aquarium is organised as a journey down the Rio Grande from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico, which is a better idea than most aquariums manage, and finishes in a shark tank. The botanic garden holds a Japanese garden, a large conservatory, a Mediterranean glass house and a Spanish-Moorish walled garden. A narrow-gauge train runs between the sites in season. It is a city institution in the plainest sense and one of the better ones in the Southwest. Tingley Beach is free and open dawn to dusk, which locals know and visitors almost never discover, and the bosque paths run past all four sites.
903 10th Street SW, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102, United States
The zoo, the aquarium and the botanic garden are open daily through the middle of the day and afternoon, with longer hours in summer and closures on a small number of major holidays. Tingley Beach, the fishing lakes and their paths, is open dawn to dusk and is free. The narrow-gauge train between the zoo and the aquarium and garden runs seasonally and in good weather. River of Lights, the winter light display in the botanic garden, is a separate ticketed evening event.