ZooMontana

ZooMontana sits on the south side of Billings off Shiloh Road, and the 28 hectares feel genuinely spacious — wide gravel paths wind through ponderosa-dotted grounds that suit the northern Rockies setting rather than fighting against it. Opened in 1994 and still modest in scale, it draws around 200,000 visitors a year, which means weekday mornings are pleasantly calm and even summer weekends rarely feel overwhelming.

Half a day is comfortable for most visitors, though families with young children tend to linger longer near the naturalistic habitats.

The grizzly bear exhibit is the centrepiece, and the enclosure gives the bears room to behave like bears — you can watch them forage, climb, and wade rather than pace. The Siberian tiger and wolf habitats follow a similar philosophy, prioritising behavioural space over theatrical backdrops.

ZooMontana also holds red pandas, always a crowd-pleaser, and wolverines, which are genuinely rare to see in any zoo setting — the American West's own elusive predator, represented here when few facilities anywhere manage it. The zoo participates in AZA Species Survival Plan programmes for several of its animals, and its focus on Rocky Mountain and temperate species gives it a coherent regional identity that many small zoos lack.

Practically speaking, the site is pushchair-friendly on its main loop, though some side paths are uneven gravel. There is limited natural shade in the central areas, so a hat and water bottle matter more than you might expect on a bright Montana summer afternoon. Parking is free and easy directly off Shiloh Road.

Go first thing in the morning on a weekday if you want the wolverine enclosure to yourself and the bears at their most active.