Worst Zoo in the U.S. You've Ever Been To

I know the owner of Big Cat Habitat....and I agree with the above statement. The conservation message is the worst I have ever heard
 
It's Waccatee Zoo, and it's not even remotely close. I initially visited it on family trips a time or two as a small child before I knew any better. I later visited it again in my early 20s, after basically no zoo visits for the preceding decade, and was absolutely aghast at how bad things were. Countless animals with open wounds, overgrown hooves, grossly overpopulated pens, filthy undersized concrete enclosures, rotting wood everywhere. Forget natural substrate, the monkey cages were essentially traps that forced their inhabitants to sit on metal bars. Even something as innocuous as the signage revealed how little this place cared for their animals and how disposable they were - the black bear was signed with a laminated sheet of printer paper titled "Brown Bear" with a few facts about the brown bear, except someone had taken a sharpie to lazily slash through the word "brown". Being at this place deeply bothered me, and frankly made me apprehensive to visit just about any zoos during my early adulthood. Thankfully I reconsidered that stance in time, but even then for several years I was very hardline AZA-only to keep from walking into another Waccatee. I've recently started to walk that back a bit too - there's a lot of small zoos with a lot of heart out there.

I'm pretty sure I fist pumped and shouted "yes!" when I read the news that this place shut down, but the vindication was short-lived after I realized just how many of its inhabitants were merely cast off into a comparable facility up the road.
 
TheGytrash said:
The Natural Bridge Zoo? I am glad to hear that. I can't believe they still have that lone elephant, though. I know you've said they don't have bears anymore and that was by far one of the worst exhibits. It sounds like they've maybe eased off on the promoting cub petting, which is good, because they were letting people get photos with tigers that were big enough to do some real harm.

I will say for anyone who visited the Catoctin Zoo recently-- I think I've seen you've posted photos from there-- those larger exhibits with the glass window weren't there during my visits as a child, and neither was the safari area. They had several concrete floored cages with thick metal bars (the worst one was the grizzly bear, who has since passed away-- it sounds like they still have the sun bear cage, but it seems to have more natural substrate and enrichment in it now), and large predators like lions, tigers, mountain lions, and wolves in flimsily fenced in areas. I wasn't shocked to hear that the wolves somehow got under the fence and dragged a mountain lion into their enclosure and killed it, or that the jaguars mauled a keeper.

The keepers always did seem to care about the animals, though, and the grounds were nice with lots of shade, and the place felt way less grim and disturbing than the Natural Bridge Zoo. It just had a weird haphazard vibe to it.
Click to expand...

Most of the glass window exhibits have been built in the last 5 years or so. Catoctin is actively building a lot of new exhibits, there's always a bunch of construction when I visit. I have yet to do the safari, it seems to mostly be more domestic species and a few common ones (like eland) that can often be seen from the main path. They are hoping to add a drive-through in the next couple of years, as well. The lions are getting a big new exhibit. There are still some fairly awful ones - the leopard, in particular - but they're at least actively working on that. They still have the sun bear cage, it's not pretty but it is large. It does have a very weird vibe to it!
 
Worst one I've been too is the Austin Aquarium...cohabbing 5 Bearded dragons in a tiny enclosure...I shudder every time I think about it. They apparently now have african penguins, asian small-clawed otters and lemurs and the facility is not large so I have no idea where they got the space for those animals but from images I have seen it is not good, part of me wants to visit again to see how things have changed but I also don't want to give that place any money.
 
Low sample size for me but it's probably Lake Tobias in Dauphin County, PA. Went for a field trip as an elementary schooler about two decades ago; the safari park ride was Fine but I remember most of the exhibits being of poor quality, especially for carnivores. I don't know how it is now.
 
I’ve been to very few non-accredited zoos, so by default that’s going to narrow down the selection quite a lot for me. That said, I’m going to nominate Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park, outside Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Before visiting, I had seen many photos, having followed them for many years on social media and it looked okay, even if the exhibits didn’t seem quite up to AZA-quality. But after I visited, I learned this was because they shied away from showing their worse exhibits.

Two in particular stuck out to me. A coati habitat that consisted of a corn crib cage with little more than a few branches to keep them occupied—I remember one just paced back and forth endlessly. The other was an Asian small-clawed otter enclosure about the size of an average single-use bathroom, with a water area about equivalent to a kiddie pool.

Those two were the most egregious, but there were many other inadequate or weak enclosures as well. Most of the terrariums in the reptile house had two many inhabitants, with not enough hiding places. Many of the bird cages also seemed more sparse in terms of vegetation, perching opportunities, etc, compared to their counterparts at an AZA zoo.

Something I also didn’t learn about until after my visit was that each year, they seem to have an an expo where guests can pet more of the animals. The photos I saw had the young of various wild ungulates like bison and nilgai, in small pens where children could pet them. I guess this isn’t inherently inhumane but I can’t imagine any accredited facility allowing this. However, from this same event, I also saw a picture of three ring-tailed lemurs stuffed into a cage smaller than my Guinea pigs’ home, which just seemed like animal cruelty.

I really did want to like this zoo, and despite everything I’ve just described, there is a small part of me that wants to go back someday. It does keep many animals that are either rare in the AZA (water buffalo, Javan langur) or I don’t see very often (lowland tapir, pygmy hippo). Thing is, until they make some serious improvements, I don’t think I ever want to give them my money again. Maybe in like five years or so, I’ll make a return visit to see if the place has gotten any better.
 
Last edited:
Oof, I was interested in going to Boulder Ridge someday because I've had people tell me it isn't terrible and by non-AZA standards overall a pretty OK spot to see rarities... granted one of them in my Instagram DMs already pre-warned me that while they found most of it great, some of the small carnivore exhibits were pretty rough, but still. Now I don't know what to do - rather awkwardly, this place has interested me more than the AZA Potter Park Zoo and Sea Life Michigan in terms of places in my state I haven't been to yet...

At the very least, my main idea even prior to all this was that I probably wouldn't agree with my mom's friend who thinks it is better than the Detroit Zoo.
 
Last edited:
AlmightyKingPrawn said:
Oof, I was interested in going to Boulder Ridge someday because I've had people tell me it isn't terrible and by non-AZA standards overall a pretty OK spot to see rarities... granted one of them in my Instagram DMs already pre-warned me that while they found most of it great, some of the small carnivore exhibits were pretty rough, but still. Now I don't know what to do - rather awkwardly, this place has interested me more than the AZA Potter Park Zoo and Sea Life Michigan in terms of places in my state I haven't been to yet...

At the very least, my main idea even prior to all this was that I probably wouldn't agree with my mom's friend who thinks it is better than the Detroit Zoo.
Click to expand...
The majority of it is passable—for example, the hoofstock and ratite enclosures are pretty nice, the primate enclosures are on the smaller side but still within the range of what you might see at an AZA zoo. For me, though, the few terrible enclosures—plus that exploitive-looking expo they apparently hold—were enough for leaving an overall bad taste in my mouth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top