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Announced 21 April 2023 — opened through the 2023 season
The reimagining: On 21 April 2023, as it geared up for its fifty-ninth season, the zoo announced that the Indonesian Rainforest would be reimagined and renamed Asian Trek — new species added, and the footprint expanded to ground the rain forest had never used. The dome of 1994 and Orangutan Valley and Tiger Forest kept their places inside the renamed whole; what was added stood at its entrance.
Red Panda Ridge and Bamboo Forest: Red Panda Ridge opened in May 2023, a treetop habitat for red pandas — with Reeve's muntjac sharing the ground below — at the Trek's threshold. Across from it rose Bamboo Forest, a two-story adventure play course of twenty-seven obstacles, rope swings, ziplines and balance beams, opened late in the 2023 season with a marketplace beside it; for children under forty-eight inches, a Sky Tykes course of eleven obstacles stands alongside. The additions made the zoo's oldest expansion zone its newest threshold, and Red Panda Ridge promptly became one of the zoo's signature stops — the city's own visitor bureau, in its 2025 spring guide, billed it as "the nationally ranked Red Panda Ridge Exhibit."
Sources:
- Corryn Brock, "Fort Wayne Children's Zoo gearing up to kick off 59th season," Journal Gazette, 21 April 2023 (the Asian Trek announcement).
- "Bamboo Forest set for early fall opening at the FW Children's Zoo," 96.3 XKE, 13 July 2023 (Red Panda Ridge opened in May; Bamboo Forest expected in early fall).
- Fort Wayne Zoo, "Name is not only change you'll see at zoo," Whatzup, March 2025 (Red Panda Ridge opened 2023; Bamboo Forest Adventure Play later that season).
- Fort Wayne Zoo, "Asian Trek" (Red Panda Ridge and its muntjac; the Bamboo Forest course's 27 obstacles and Sky Tykes), fwzoo.com.
- Visit Fort Wayne, Spring Travel Guide (the "nationally ranked Red Panda Ridge Exhibit"), visitfortwayne.com.