Oregon Zoo

Oregon Zoo occupies 64 acres in Washington Park, adjacent to the Japanese Garden and Hoyt Arboretum. The zoo is well known for its Pacific Shores section (sea lions, sea otters), the African Savanna, and the Elephant Lands habitat — a 6-acre facility that replaced the older elephant barn in 2015. A narrow-gauge railway runs around the outer perimeter of the zoo and continues into Washington Park seasonally.

The zoo is reachable from the Washington Park MAX station (Red and Blue lines), which is underground and is the deepest transit station in North America. It's a short walk from the station exit. The zoo is closed on Christmas Day; admission fees are reduced on the second Tuesday of each month for Oregon residents.

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The Oregon Zoo has held Asian elephants continuously since 1953, and has bred more Asian elephants in captivity than any other facility in North America. The first zoo-born elephant in the Western Hemisphere, Packy, was born here in 1962 and lived at the zoo until 2017. The elephant breeding programme has been controversial — animal welfare advocates and the zoo have clashed repeatedly over the animals' conditions — but the programme remains one of the zoo's defining characteristics.

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