Boo at the Zoo

About this event

Oakland Zoo turns its grounds over to Halloween for three weekends: October 17–18, 24–25, and 31–November 1, which means it covers Halloween itself and the day after. The day you choose changes what you get. Pathway Encounters run at 1pm both days, but Saturdays are the House of Bugs — the creepy-crawly residents, handled up close — while Sundays are the Reptile and Amphibian Discovery Room. If you have a child with strong feelings about spiders versus snakes, pick accordingly. The trading cards turn the visit into a hunt. Seven collection points around the zoo each hold a different limited-edition card: the Lesser Flamingo at the entrances, the White Handed Gibbon at the rides ticket booth, the Chimpanzee at Flamingo Plaza and the guest services kiosks, the American Alligator in the Reptile Room, the Caribbean Cave Cockroach at the Bug House, and — new this year — the California Condor at the Habitarium. Finding all seven takes you the length of the zoo, which is either a feature or a warning depending on the age of your children. The costume contest is Saturdays only, at noon in the Wildlife Theater inside the Wayne & Gladys Valley Children's Zoo. Sunday visitors can still come in costume but there's no contest. One rule worth reading before you buy the outfit: no inflatable costumes. The zoo asks specifically because they frighten the animals. An inflatable dinosaur is one of the most common children's Halloween costumes there is, so this catches people out. This is the daytime counterweight to the Bay Area's haunt season — animals, sunshine and a scavenger hunt, with nothing designed to frighten anyone.