Zootah at Willow Park, a Logan family afternoon

The place opened in 1970 as a public bird aviary in Willow Park, a city amenity built around waterfowl and pheasants, and it grew from there into a small zoo the city ran for decades. The two dates worth carrying are recent. In 2013 the operation became a private nonprofit rather than a line in the municipal budget, and in 2017 it rebranded from Willow Park Zoo to Zootah, a name meant to read regionally rather than as one park in one town. The park it sits in kept its name; the zoo took a new one.

That history explains the bird heavy collection and the modest footprint, and it explains the seasonal operation too. A nonprofit running seven acres on admissions and memberships keeps its shortest schedule in the cold months rather than staffing an outdoor zoo at full strength, which is why the calendar below is thinnest from January to March and in November, and why the hours move around the shoulders of the year.

Zootah does not run one set of hours. It runs a seasonal calendar that opens more days and stays open later as the year warms, then tightens back down in the fall into a short winter schedule. The version below was read at zootah.org in September 2026, and the zoo itself notes that the schedule shifts, so treat this as the shape of the year and confirm the exact day and admission at the source. The through line is simple: the fewest days in the cold months and the most from June to August.

Admission, when the zoo is open, is 9 dollars for anyone twelve and up, 6 dollars for ages two to eleven, and free for infants, bought at the gate or online. A membership pays for regular admission across the year, adds half off the ticketed special events such as Boo at the Zoo in October and December's Zoo Lights, and carries free or discounted entry at reciprocating zoos elsewhere, which is the piece that makes it worth pricing if you travel and visit zoos in other cities.

The zoo shares its address with Willow Park, a large Logan city park on 700 South, and the two together are the reason a Zootah trip fills an afternoon rather than an hour. The park wraps the zoo in playgrounds, shade trees, duck ponds fed by the little waterways that run through it, and picnic pavilions, so the usual rhythm is the zoo loop first and the playground and ponds after, or the reverse if the little one needs to run before standing still. The park is free and open on its own hours, independent of the zoo gate, which means the green space works even on the days the zoo is closed.

The pavilions can be reserved through Logan City Parks and Recreation for a modest fee, with the larger Willow West Rotary pavilion and the center stage area costing a little more than the standard shelters, so a birthday or a family gathering can be booked ahead rather than left to chance on a Saturday. There are restrooms, and an amphitheater style stage that the city rents for events. It is an ordinary, well used neighborhood park, and that is exactly what makes it the right partner to a small zoo.

The way most people use Zootah is as the anchor of a half day rather than the whole of one. An hour or so through the animals, an hour on the playground and by the ponds, a picnic under a pavilion, and you have filled a morning or an afternoon for the price of two small gate fees. Because the zoo is a one to two hour stop, it pairs naturally with the rest of the city: a stop at First Dam and the paved river trail is close by and covered on the Logan parks, trails and river page, and a cone at the USU creamery is the standard reward on the way home, which the things to do in Logan list ranks first.

On a hot summer day, the water at the Logan Aquatic Center and the shade of Willow Park's trees do the work the zoo cannot, and on a cold or wet one the indoor options carry the day. If a Zootah visit is the reason you are looking at Logan at all, the practical side of living here, the neighborhoods, the schools and what homes cost, sits on the Logan city page, and the wider valley, from Logan Canyon to Bear Lake, is written up across the Cache Valley section.