What Zootah is
Seven acres, forty species, and an honest scale to it.
Zootah describes itself as roughly seven acres holding more than forty species of native and exotic animals, and the honest way to set expectations is to say what it is not. This is not a big city zoo with a savanna and a rainforest dome. It grew out of a bird collection, and it still reads that way: an aviary and a small farm as much as a zoo, walked in a loop rather than toured for a day. Longtime visitors and reviewers land on the same phrase, more farm and aviary than zoo, and they mean it as a description rather than a complaint. For toddlers and younger kids especially, the close in scale is the appeal, because the animals are near and the whole place is coverable on small legs.
The collection the zoo names on its own pages runs from blue throated macaws, one of the rarer parrots in the world, to lemurs, tortoises, a fox, a lynx and a porcupine, alongside the ducks and pheasants the place started with. There is a petting area, and the animals rotate, so any single list is a snapshot rather than a promise. What stays constant is the format: short paths, hand lettered signs, and a scale where a three year old can see everything without being carried the whole way.
The details
Before you go
- Set expectations as a farm and aviary park, not a big city zoo. It is a one to two hour stop.
- The animal roster rotates, so treat any list, this one included, as a snapshot rather than a guarantee.
- The gate and hours shift with the season. The zoo posts both at zootah.org and answers the phone on 435-750-9894.
How it got here
From a city bird aviary to a nonprofit named Zootah.
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 closes for the two deep winter months rather than heating and staffing an outdoor zoo through them, which is why the calendar below has a hole in it from January to February and why the hours move around the shoulders of the year.
Hours and season
A calendar that moves, so check it before you drive.
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 before closing for the winter. The version below was read at zootah.org in August 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, the most from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and no regular day visits at all in January and February.
| The stretch of the year | Days open | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| January and February | Closed | Closed for the winter |
| March | Friday and Saturday, plus Sunday | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| April | Thursday to Saturday, plus Sunday | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| May | Monday to Saturday, plus Sunday | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| Memorial Day to Labor Day | Monday to Saturday, plus Sunday | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| September | Monday to Saturday, plus Sunday | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| October | Thursday to Saturday, plus Sunday | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from noon |
| November | Friday and Saturday, plus Sunday | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Thanksgiving week |
| December | Evenings for Zoo Lights | Day visits pause for the after dark light event |
Read at zootah.org in August 2026. Hours and admission are set by the zoo and change through the year, so confirm the day you are going at the source or on 435-750-9894 before making the drive.
Zootah is closed for regular visits in January and February, and December swaps day hours for the after dark Zoo Lights event. The winter closure catches families who assume a zoo keeps steady hours. If you are planning a cold weather visit, the day pass calendar does not apply, and the December option is an evening lights walk rather than an animal visit. The zoo publishes the current hours, admission, and event dates on its own site, which is the only place they stay current.
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 park around it
Willow Park is the other half of the afternoon.
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 winter 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 details
A family afternoon
How it fits into a day in Logan.
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 zoo is closed anyway and 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.
