I went there today. Their newest acquisition is a pair of blue-throated macaws, which were acquired via donation. The owner is currently holding a fundraising drive to buy giraffes. I gave him the loose change from my admission, but also told him that I came to the zoo to see the fossa and falanoka rather than giraffes, at which point he asked if I learned about him through ZooChat. I guess he gets a fair number of us, and knows we're the ones who ask about those.
It really is in the middle of nowhere, even by Texas standards. It's also got a really run-down look. What signs there are are a mix of professional-looking zoo signs, hand-made wood signs, and printed information sheets in plastic sleeves, however the signage is often inaccurate or completely absent.
The most bizarre case is the falanoka exhibit. The main sign is for the falanouc, and predates the split of the species in 2010. The smaller sign on the bottom left has the scientific name of the falanoka ans is mostly covered by weeds. He told me that the falanoka was off-exhibit because it's twenty-one years old, but there was a striped mongoose-looking animal curled up by the front, so I think it's the falanouc that's off-exhibit.
There's no maps or signs telling you where to find animals, and organization seems almost random. Like parrots are often grouped together, the big cats are grouped together, the wallaby, cockatoo, and the dingoes are in one exhibit, and the fossa, falanoka, and ring-tailed lemurs are together, but then you have other animals in those same exhibits and the brown lemurs and several parrots are elsewhere. I wandered around and did not see the brush-tailed bettong. I forgot to ask about it, but there was one exhibit which looked about the right size for the bettong where I couldn't see any animal, so it might have been it its hide.
There's two big aviary buildings filled with at least three species of curassow, a couple guinea fowl (most of the guinea fowl are free-roaming), and one domestic heirloom turkey. The signage is completely off and there's a sign for an occelated turkey but no occelated turkey present.
Personally, I like the idea of small private zoos, and this one made me considerably less uncomfortable than Lupa Zoo (founded as a private zoo though now a municipal one) did. And the prairie dogs have tunneled out of their exhibit and constructed a warren which stretches from the camel to one of the brown lemurs, which I find equal parts awesome, adorable, and amusing. The presentation is an absolute mess, but the owner is charming and the animal care standards for the most part seem to be decent. Most of the animals seemed to have ample space, the dingoes--for example--had almost as much as Zoo Miami gives the New Guinea singing dog.
There are only three things that concerned me. The first was the mountain coatis (yet another rare species the zoo has), which he breeds for other zoos. However it turns out that (except for fully adult males), mountain coatis are social, and since most other enclosure sizes looked fine to me I imagine that the enclosure he has them in is appropriate. My second concern still is the bats, which I believe are Egyptian fruit bats. When I was there they kept flying into the window and you could see the smudges from their body oil where they hit. They can't echolocate of course, but I've never seen them do it in wire enclosures, so I'm guessing they can see wire and not glass.
My biggest concern in terms of animal care is the parrots. I didn't see much in the way of enrichment (other than sticks to chew on and other birds to preen) for most of them. Most of them didn't seem to be negatively affected, but two of the four blue-and-gold macaws had feather-plucking issues. Unlike the cockatoo, African gray, and sun conure, who all seemed fine, the blue and golds didn't seem to have anywhere to hide to avoid visitors, so I'm wondering if that's the cause of the feather-plucking.
For such a small zoo, the variety is impressive, particularly with mammals. Blue-throated macaws, fossa, falanoka, mountain coati, African civet, and dingo are all fairly rare in zoos (as would be the occelated turkey if he actually has one). There was a sign for a collared lemur (in addition to the two common brown lemurs, but in a different exhibit), but it was asleep so I couldn't confirm it. And I'd have to double check this also, but I think he has three species of coatimundi. He also has a white tiger and a black leopard, as well as a hippo, an Asian black bear, a wallaby, and Egyptian fruit bats.
the collection has never held falanouc of either species, only fanaloka.
