New Member and Aspiring Zoo Owner

[Shutterfox]

Hello there! My name is Dana and myself and my husband are (surprise, surprise) looking to start building a small exotic animal menagerie, with the hopes to establish a roadside zoological attraction. Both my husband and I have lifelong experience working professionally with horses and have reasonable experience with the stereotypical farm animals.

My exotic experience has been, in the past, limited to personally owning hookbills (macaws, african greys, conures, and lorikeets), reptiles (snakes, iguanas, turtles, and tortoises) and a wide variety of "exotic pets" such as ferrets, guinea pigs, chinchillas, etc.

Throughout the past year, I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work alongside "zoo exotics" at my job including coatimundis, Patagonian cavies, african crested porcupines, African Serval cats, white handed gibbons, zebras, Nilgai, zebu cattle, giant Aldabra tortoises, Scottish highlander cows, emus, lemurs, camels, and probably a few I've left out of this list.

I am located in Virginia, but we have every intention to move to a state with significantly more lenient exotic animal laws. We were looking into possibly West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, or elsewhere.

We are both aware this will require quite a bit of time, money, and sanity to make this a reality, but we are willing to do whatever it takes to make our dreams come true! Our timeframe is very lenient, as we don't expect to have any sort of established attraction for 10-15 years. This will give us the time to acquire the necessary land in the right location, permits and licenses, construct our enclosures and habitats, build the appropriate buildings, and finally acquire the animals.

We would love to purchase an already established our out of business zoo and improve the facilities and continue expansion on our own, but I'm clueless as to where to look for such properties. Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated!

I am looking to the ZooChat forum for some advice, and perhaps even meet with some current zoo owners as to how to make our goal a reality.

I really look forward to meeting all of you and hope we can gather some insight on the zoological industry though you members!

Take care and thanks in advance!

 

[kiang]

Hello Dana welcome to the site.

My first piece of advice to you would be to drop the roadside from your zoological attraction.

Wishing you well with your ambitions.

 

[Shutterfox]

Thank you, Kiang, for your response!

May I inquire as to why nix the idea of dropping the roadside access to our park? From the privately owned zoological businesses I've encountered, it seemed as though a roadside location(especially in proximity to major roads would bring more business, as it's easier access to travelers and, in a sense, better marketing to the public being an easy accessible location. I would think a middle-of-nowhere location wouldn't draw many visitors.

Perhaps there is a better way to go about it? I am very open-minded, and as I mentioned, we have several years before locating an ideal property to start our business.

Thank you

 

[FBBird]

New Member.....

'Roadside zoos' as a concept have a and reputation. Just don't call it that.
The other thing to bear in mind is that it will cost vastly more than you think it will.

 

[Parrotsandrew]

Welcome to ZooChat Dana, good luck and thank-you for calling a certain species the Patagonian Cavy - I wish people in the UK would do the same.

 

[Blackduiker]

Welcome to ZooChat Dana.

 

[CGSwans]

Shutterfox, you're probably getting a poor reception for your use of the term 'roadside zoo'.

There's nothing inherent in a zoo that is on the side of a road being bad, of course. But the phrase has passed into general usage to denote a cheap and nasty, for profit "attraction" that has poor to terrible animal welfare standards.

I strongly suggest you never, ever refer to any business you end up establishing as a "roadside zoo". It's not going to be good for you.

I have in the past had the same ambitions - largely superseded by other life events now - and whilst I never got beyond the conceptual stage I have a few random thoughts to offer.
1. Choose a location based on the resident population, not the holiday crowds. You are less hostage to the ups and downs of the economy that way. People are very quick to drop their holiday plans if they're feeling unsure about their finances, but what actually happens at such times is that patronage at affordable local attractions goes up. If you go to a holiday destination you might get 8 good years out of 10, but two bad ones in a row will shut you down.

2. If you follow my advice with point one, do your research on the place you choose. Hundreds, if not thousands of hours of research. It's not enough for region x to have 500,000 people within 50 miles of where you want to build. What kind of community is it? Are there lots of families with young children? Or is the population of a type that is less likely to visit you, such as the elderly or lots of students? Investigate the local business environment, the prevailing cultural attitudes towards zoos and the environment, and more mundane things like the quality of surrounding roads. Write out a detailed proposal as if you need to use it to convince the local government. If you're relying on too many "if this happens" type statements to make it work, then look elsewhere instead.

3. Be on good terms with your neighbours. Seriously. You want to bring tigers and bears and who-knows-what-else into their neighbourhood? Where their kids like to play outside? Expect to spend a lot of time arguing over planning permission. A consultative and open approach with the local community will make it all go a lot more smoothly.

4. If you haven't gotten the general theme yet, it's that zoos are a business. Quite apart from whether *you* go hungry, your animals don't eat if you don't have the money coming in to subsidise this. Roadside zoos get a bad reputation for two reasons, most of all: poor attitudes from owners and poor business models. The former determines what kind of zoo you *want* to run, and the latter determines the type you *can* run. If you end up running a zoo, unless it's very small you'll quickly find you spend more time cleaning up accounts than you do animal enclosures. If that doesn't excite you, then become a zookeeper and leave it to someone else.