BIRD'S-EYE ZOO

Bird watchers have plenty to watch at the St. Louis Zoo's new Bird Garden.

Visitors follow a winding pathway to six large aviaries, a spacious walk-through aviary and a shaded pavilion overlooking a meadow of white-naped cranes.

They cross a footbridge over a meandering stream and waterfall. The area is landscaped with reflecting pools and beds of flowering plants.

Birds from South America, Australia, Asia and North America live in the garden. The collection includes long-tailed motmots, laughing thrushes, bald eagles, red-billed toucans, Himalayan monal pheasants and blue-faced honeyeaters.

The garden is a calm oasis, said Ron Goellner, the general curator of the zoo.

"It is a very nice, pleasant walk," he said.

The garden opened last August. It is situated on two acres of gently sloping, woodsy terrain between the Spanish-styled Bird House and the 1904 Flight Cage on the east side of the zoo.

The zoo spent $2 million building the garden. Each of the six new aviaries is fronted by stone columns and nearly invisible piano wire.

"What the architect did was construct smaller exhibits, patterned after the arching construction of the 1904 Flight Cage," Goellner said.

"The Bird Charmer," a 1930's life-size bronze statue of a Zuni Indian holding a magpie, stands at the entrance to the garden.

Even with all the changes, the 1904 Flight Cage remains a visible feature of the zoo in Forest Park.

The Smithsonian built the walk-through Flight Cage for the 1904 World's Fair. After the fair, the city of St. Louis purchased the bird cage.

The city had a small zoological collection at the park. The St. Louis Zoo officially was established in 1913.

The zoo's first elephant, Miss Jim, was purchased in 1916 with pennies donated by St. Louis school children.

Today, the St. Louis Zoo is one of the top five zoos in the country.

Goellner grew up in south St. Louis. As a boy, he collected toads and snakes.

"We would ride bikes out to the country. We used to look for king snakes and rat snakes and whatever we could find," he recalled.

Now he has plenty of animals to watch over.

"We have about 6,500 animals," said Goellner, who was the zoo's reptile curator for 25 years before moving up to the general curator job.

The zoo's newest arrival is the Somali wild ass. The zoo is only the second zoo in North America to have the endangered animal.

The San Diego Zoo has a heard of about 30.

The St. Louis Zoo is one of only three major zoos in the country that has free admission.

Funding comes from a tax paid by St. Louis city and county residents, from donations and from parking and concession fees.

About 2.6 million people visit the 90-acre zoo each year. The big cats remain the most popular attraction for visitors, Goellner said.

Other favorites are the bears and apes.

Goellner said the zoo is involved in animal conservation efforts.

Right now, everything is being done at the zoo. But the zoo plans to develop a 355-acre site in Franklin County for the breeding of endangered species. The land was donated to the zoo about five years ago.

The popular Children's Zoo closed last September for renovation and expansion. The new facility is slated to open in early 1998.

In the meantime, the zoo has set up a temporary Animal Encounters exhibit where children can see pygmy goats, llamas and other animals up close.

Zoos have changed over the years, Goellner said.

"Technology enables us to do more things than we could 10 or 20 years ago."

Today, the animals are in modern exhibits that have climate controls.

But one thing hasn't changed, said Goellner. "I think people still just have an attraction to wildlife and wanting to see wildlife up close."