Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip
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ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Tell that to the visitors at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas, 2007. From what I understand, Tatiana the Siberian tiger used the overhanging legs of a young kid to dig in his claws and climb his way out of his pen. Of course what the kid was doing (hanging his legs over the edge of the tiger grotto) was stupid, but still, Tatiana had to do some "climbing" to get out. The kid paid for his stupidity with his life.
Where did you get this from? I googled the incident, and nowhere did it say that the Tiger grabbed a child's legs to escape. From what I read, the USDA found that the Tiger jumped from the moat to the area in front of where the public can go.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Can't reveal the name of my source, but it was from someone inside the Zoo. I guess they didn't want to openly talk about a tiger digging its claws into the thighs of a teenage kid. The conclusion was that the wall "would have been" high enough if the kids hadn't dangled their legs over it.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Actually, I don't even remember his name anymore! Sorry.
DAY 11: Sunday, July 22nd
Another 6 small Wisconsin zoos today:
Zoo #36:
About half an hour south of Milwaukee is this abomination of a zoo that goes by the name of Jo-Don Farm & Zoo (Franksville, WI). I walked in with nobody in sight and saw the entire zoo in about 14 minutes flat. Then a staff member apologized for the fact that some employees recently quit and he was therefore running solo and I handed over my $5 admission fee. There are a couple of tigers, a mammoth male lion, a cougar, a wolf, and my daily fix of African Crested Porcupines, Ring-tailed Lemurs Maras, Dromedaries, Llamas, Coatis and various waterfowl and a few reptiles. That is basically the entire zoo, other than domestics, and I went around a second time and spent maybe 25 minutes in this dump that is out in the countryside on a working farm. The highlight was seeing a Red Fox, an Arctic Fox and a Gray Fox all in the same enclosure. It is obviously zoologically ridiculous but also very interesting to compare the pelts of all three at once. The worst cage award goes to the Cougar exhibit as it is perhaps 18 feet wide and 18 feet deep...this dump is an ugly plague on the world of zoos.
Zoo #37:
About 30 minutes east is yet another zoo that is on private property and has next to zero advertising signs. Bear Den Zoo (Waterford, WI) has been around a long time and it shows as there are corn crib cages in all directions, animals like a Bobcat, Serval, Canada Lynx and American Badger on cement floors in those corn crib monstrosities. Lots of goats, chickens and other domestics abound, with the star attraction being a 100-day old Ring-tailed Lemur and an 11 year-old American Black Bear that used to be in a god-awful cement cage but now that enclosure has been expanded to include a decent grassy yard. Apparently the bear refused to go out into his new home for a long time and preferred the smaller and antiquated cage section! I had a long chat with a volunteer at the zoo and she has been there for 19 years and she honestly sees nothing wrong with the cement-and-wire style enclosures and her opinion was that the animals were 'pampered and spoiled' every day of their lives. Some folks see absolutely nothing wrong with the deplorable condition of some of the cages in their local zoo, perhaps in part because they don't know any better. Anyway, Bear Den Zoo was a step up from the atrocious Jo-Don Farm & Zoo but it was still a struggle for me to spend 30 minutes there as it is very tiny.
Zoo #38:
Driving an hour north, I came to the best zoo of the 6 that I visited today in the form of Shalom Wildlife Zoo (West Bend, WI) and it is another new American zoo as its license was only just awarded in 2010. I spent a solid 2 hours here and I was walking for much of that time as the zoo is 100 acres, has 400 animals, and has a wide gravel road that takes visitors through the park. At times there are some beautiful exhibits as the ungulates have a great time at this facility. They are fed by many visitors and some of the pens (it seems as if everyone in Wisconsin calls zoo enclosures 'pens') are enormous. The Plains Bison, White-tailed Deer, Albino White-tailed Deer, Piebald White-tailed Deer, Red Deer, Sika Deer and Fallow Deer exhibits range in size from maybe an acre to perhaps 10 acres. It can be a bit hard for little kids to see a few deer, then walk 10 minutes through a forested area only to see a few more deer, and I saw some restless toddlers.
The flip-side to this zoo is that there are some disgraceful exhibits for smaller animals that are small cages with wire floors. How is that even comfortable to walk on? I saw two Fishers pacing badly, and other crappy cages with either cement or wire floors featured species such as American Badger, Coyote, Red Fox, Arctic Fox, American Mink and Virginia Opossum. All of those animals are found in cages that are beyond awful. There is also a big enclosure with Ostriches, Emus and Rheas (white ones) all together. Then there is a densely-packed Grey Wolf exhibit that is fantastic and full of vegetation and a brand-new Cougar exhibit that I would perhaps call outstanding as it is a contender for the largest Cougar enclosure that I've ever seen. Just when this zoo has its moment of greatness, like a spacious and natural-looking Grizzly Bear habitat, I walk into the gift shop and see rows of tiny American Alligator heads and turtle shells for sale. Disgusting! Want a gator head for your desk?
Zoo #39:
I've never gone through so many junky zoos in such a short span of time, but Glacier Ridge Animal Farm (Van Dyne, WI) is only 30 minutes farther north and it is a strong candidate for the worst of the 400+ zoos that I've visited in my lifetime. Other than the usual motley assortment of ducks, geese, chickens, goats and sheep, there was the daily fix of Dromedaries, Llamas, Alpacas, Emus, Ostriches and Ring-tailed Lemurs. One surprise was some Asian Water Buffalo (almost unheard of in American zoos) but this establishment has been left to rot in squalor. The zoo portion is apparently going to close down soon and I was the only visitor for the past THREE DAYS! The teenage girl at the counter almost had a heart attack as I accidentally scared her from texting and she literally fell over. OMG, a zoo visitor...LOL!
On the way out I ran into the owner and his big white moustache. He was far more interesting than his decrepit zoo! We chatted for a long time and he told me some wild stories. He doesn't really take care of his zoo much and has let it go to rot, which is obvious to anyone that treks through the place. He told me that his property is a working Bison Farm and that he sells meat and runs a herd of at least 15 Plains Bison. Other stories included the time when he sold a few White-nosed Coatis to Fort Worth Zoo down in Texas, all done via air mail. Or how last summer a baby Asian Water Buffalo was born during a snowstorm and he pulled the calf inside his house and kept it in the basement all winter...he said that the smell was something fierce! Or how the DeYoung Family Zoo bought their first Chimpanzee a few years ago from a private seller for $40,000. Lastly, his greatest zoo memory was that he had a pet Rhesus Macaque with him for over 20 years and it was like a little son. The monkey would follow him everywhere, it would lounge in front of the fire at night and they'd eat popcorn together on the couch. Zoo owners are a wacky bunch!
Zoo #40:
The 5th zoo of the day was another 30 minutes north and it is one that will hopefully undergo a metamorphosis in the future as there are Master Plan signs erected around Menominee Park. Menominee Park Zoo (Oshkosh, WI) is free, tiny and I easily saw all of the exhibits in about 30 minutes. There is an excellent, 1-acre Grey Wolf exhibit, a large American Elk enclosure, a decent North American River Otter exhibit with underwater viewing, and then the rest of the zoo is pretty poor. There is a central lake and the wolf, elk and otter exhibits are all on one side while the rest of the zoo is spread out on the far shore. That section includes skunks, llamas, several domestic species, some waterfowl, a Bobcat and not much else.
Zoo #41:
That brings me to the 6th zoo of the day and 41st of this exhausting trip. Animal Haven Zoo (Weyauwega, WI) is another of the many Wisconsin zoos that aren't the greatest and this slapdash menagerie has been around for decades. Once more the zoo's owners were more interesting than the inhabitants of the exhibits, but first of all the zoo itself has some decent hoofstock paddocks (loads of goats, camels, emus, ostriches, more goats, Aoudads, Plains Bison, Mouflon, etc.) but the carnivores don't do nearly as well. The zoo has 11 tigers (including a Liger) and a 12th on the way in August. There are a couple of African Lions and the zoo is building a 40 x 40 foot new lion exhibit in a few weeks as right now the two animals are in holding 'pens'. I saw them and the lions are in cages that are only twice as long as they are and so hopefully that new exhibit goes up fast! There is a black Leopard, at least 9 bears (Grizzly and American Black) and other species such as Cougar, Bobcat, Serval, White-nosed Coati and a handful of other exotics.
Now let's discuss the owners. They are exceptionally nice, hard-working people and it is a husband and wife team who run the zoo. Yet again, and this shouldn't surprise anyone, they've essentially been to zero other zoos besides their own. Special Memories Zoo is 30 minutes away and the owners of Animal Haven Zoo have NEVER visited and they hadn't even heard of most of the zoos that I'd just gone through this week. How is that possible? I told them that I'd been to more than 400 zoos (something I've only told a few people on this trip) and the owners treated me like a rock star. They started telling other visitors that I'd come all the way to Canada to see their tiny zoo, they asked me a lot of questions about other zoos and after I spent 1.5 hours walking around we sat down and had a good chat. They were so nice that it almost pains me to say that much of their beloved zoo is garbage. There is a Bobcat living in a 6-foot metal cage, a Coati in another metal cage not much larger, 11 tigers in very small enclosures and African Lions temporarily living in shoeboxes. The owners are delusional and think that their little zoo is wonderful and I didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. They asked what exhibits they could improve and when I mentioned a couple of them (like the black Leopard cage) they became ultra-defensive and took me outside to show me another side exhibit that was connected to the main one. Never mind that the leopard was sitting in a small cement bunker...they live in a fantasy world.
Anyway, I behaved myself and we had a lovely chat. The man is 72 years old, his wife is 70 and they want to run the zoo for another 8 years. At that point they plan on selling everything (the house next door, the main building, the entire zoo) for approximately 2 million dollars and if no one buys the zoo then they've already checked out prices on bulldozers. I'm not even joking as they plan to demolish it all if they can't find a seller as their grandchildren “ain't worth more than some hairy monkey nuts and they ain't getting the joint for free”. Anyone interested on ZooChat? The annual visitor count is only 20,000-25,000 and I don't even know how they manage to eke out a living but the couple work 7 days a week from May to October every year. They have one employee on per day and then it is these two senior citizens running the gift shop, cafe, maintenance and doing everything around the zoo. I honestly don't even know how they manage it all and they never get a day off until the winter-time when they are snowed in on some days. They've got at least 16 big cats, 9 bears and another hundred other animals and these two seniors are doing everything with little to no help. They even told me that they don't bother with giving any of their animals annual checkups and most of the veterinary work that needs to be done they do themselves. Holy crap!
Another 6 small Wisconsin zoos today:
Zoo #36:
About half an hour south of Milwaukee is this abomination of a zoo that goes by the name of Jo-Don Farm & Zoo (Franksville, WI). I walked in with nobody in sight and saw the entire zoo in about 14 minutes flat. Then a staff member apologized for the fact that some employees recently quit and he was therefore running solo and I handed over my $5 admission fee. There are a couple of tigers, a mammoth male lion, a cougar, a wolf, and my daily fix of African Crested Porcupines, Ring-tailed Lemurs Maras, Dromedaries, Llamas, Coatis and various waterfowl and a few reptiles. That is basically the entire zoo, other than domestics, and I went around a second time and spent maybe 25 minutes in this dump that is out in the countryside on a working farm. The highlight was seeing a Red Fox, an Arctic Fox and a Gray Fox all in the same enclosure. It is obviously zoologically ridiculous but also very interesting to compare the pelts of all three at once. The worst cage award goes to the Cougar exhibit as it is perhaps 18 feet wide and 18 feet deep...this dump is an ugly plague on the world of zoos.
Zoo #37:
About 30 minutes east is yet another zoo that is on private property and has next to zero advertising signs. Bear Den Zoo (Waterford, WI) has been around a long time and it shows as there are corn crib cages in all directions, animals like a Bobcat, Serval, Canada Lynx and American Badger on cement floors in those corn crib monstrosities. Lots of goats, chickens and other domestics abound, with the star attraction being a 100-day old Ring-tailed Lemur and an 11 year-old American Black Bear that used to be in a god-awful cement cage but now that enclosure has been expanded to include a decent grassy yard. Apparently the bear refused to go out into his new home for a long time and preferred the smaller and antiquated cage section! I had a long chat with a volunteer at the zoo and she has been there for 19 years and she honestly sees nothing wrong with the cement-and-wire style enclosures and her opinion was that the animals were 'pampered and spoiled' every day of their lives. Some folks see absolutely nothing wrong with the deplorable condition of some of the cages in their local zoo, perhaps in part because they don't know any better. Anyway, Bear Den Zoo was a step up from the atrocious Jo-Don Farm & Zoo but it was still a struggle for me to spend 30 minutes there as it is very tiny.
Zoo #38:
Driving an hour north, I came to the best zoo of the 6 that I visited today in the form of Shalom Wildlife Zoo (West Bend, WI) and it is another new American zoo as its license was only just awarded in 2010. I spent a solid 2 hours here and I was walking for much of that time as the zoo is 100 acres, has 400 animals, and has a wide gravel road that takes visitors through the park. At times there are some beautiful exhibits as the ungulates have a great time at this facility. They are fed by many visitors and some of the pens (it seems as if everyone in Wisconsin calls zoo enclosures 'pens') are enormous. The Plains Bison, White-tailed Deer, Albino White-tailed Deer, Piebald White-tailed Deer, Red Deer, Sika Deer and Fallow Deer exhibits range in size from maybe an acre to perhaps 10 acres. It can be a bit hard for little kids to see a few deer, then walk 10 minutes through a forested area only to see a few more deer, and I saw some restless toddlers.
The flip-side to this zoo is that there are some disgraceful exhibits for smaller animals that are small cages with wire floors. How is that even comfortable to walk on? I saw two Fishers pacing badly, and other crappy cages with either cement or wire floors featured species such as American Badger, Coyote, Red Fox, Arctic Fox, American Mink and Virginia Opossum. All of those animals are found in cages that are beyond awful. There is also a big enclosure with Ostriches, Emus and Rheas (white ones) all together. Then there is a densely-packed Grey Wolf exhibit that is fantastic and full of vegetation and a brand-new Cougar exhibit that I would perhaps call outstanding as it is a contender for the largest Cougar enclosure that I've ever seen. Just when this zoo has its moment of greatness, like a spacious and natural-looking Grizzly Bear habitat, I walk into the gift shop and see rows of tiny American Alligator heads and turtle shells for sale. Disgusting! Want a gator head for your desk?
Zoo #39:
I've never gone through so many junky zoos in such a short span of time, but Glacier Ridge Animal Farm (Van Dyne, WI) is only 30 minutes farther north and it is a strong candidate for the worst of the 400+ zoos that I've visited in my lifetime. Other than the usual motley assortment of ducks, geese, chickens, goats and sheep, there was the daily fix of Dromedaries, Llamas, Alpacas, Emus, Ostriches and Ring-tailed Lemurs. One surprise was some Asian Water Buffalo (almost unheard of in American zoos) but this establishment has been left to rot in squalor. The zoo portion is apparently going to close down soon and I was the only visitor for the past THREE DAYS! The teenage girl at the counter almost had a heart attack as I accidentally scared her from texting and she literally fell over. OMG, a zoo visitor...LOL!
On the way out I ran into the owner and his big white moustache. He was far more interesting than his decrepit zoo! We chatted for a long time and he told me some wild stories. He doesn't really take care of his zoo much and has let it go to rot, which is obvious to anyone that treks through the place. He told me that his property is a working Bison Farm and that he sells meat and runs a herd of at least 15 Plains Bison. Other stories included the time when he sold a few White-nosed Coatis to Fort Worth Zoo down in Texas, all done via air mail. Or how last summer a baby Asian Water Buffalo was born during a snowstorm and he pulled the calf inside his house and kept it in the basement all winter...he said that the smell was something fierce! Or how the DeYoung Family Zoo bought their first Chimpanzee a few years ago from a private seller for $40,000. Lastly, his greatest zoo memory was that he had a pet Rhesus Macaque with him for over 20 years and it was like a little son. The monkey would follow him everywhere, it would lounge in front of the fire at night and they'd eat popcorn together on the couch. Zoo owners are a wacky bunch!
Zoo #40:
The 5th zoo of the day was another 30 minutes north and it is one that will hopefully undergo a metamorphosis in the future as there are Master Plan signs erected around Menominee Park. Menominee Park Zoo (Oshkosh, WI) is free, tiny and I easily saw all of the exhibits in about 30 minutes. There is an excellent, 1-acre Grey Wolf exhibit, a large American Elk enclosure, a decent North American River Otter exhibit with underwater viewing, and then the rest of the zoo is pretty poor. There is a central lake and the wolf, elk and otter exhibits are all on one side while the rest of the zoo is spread out on the far shore. That section includes skunks, llamas, several domestic species, some waterfowl, a Bobcat and not much else.
Zoo #41:
That brings me to the 6th zoo of the day and 41st of this exhausting trip. Animal Haven Zoo (Weyauwega, WI) is another of the many Wisconsin zoos that aren't the greatest and this slapdash menagerie has been around for decades. Once more the zoo's owners were more interesting than the inhabitants of the exhibits, but first of all the zoo itself has some decent hoofstock paddocks (loads of goats, camels, emus, ostriches, more goats, Aoudads, Plains Bison, Mouflon, etc.) but the carnivores don't do nearly as well. The zoo has 11 tigers (including a Liger) and a 12th on the way in August. There are a couple of African Lions and the zoo is building a 40 x 40 foot new lion exhibit in a few weeks as right now the two animals are in holding 'pens'. I saw them and the lions are in cages that are only twice as long as they are and so hopefully that new exhibit goes up fast! There is a black Leopard, at least 9 bears (Grizzly and American Black) and other species such as Cougar, Bobcat, Serval, White-nosed Coati and a handful of other exotics.
Now let's discuss the owners. They are exceptionally nice, hard-working people and it is a husband and wife team who run the zoo. Yet again, and this shouldn't surprise anyone, they've essentially been to zero other zoos besides their own. Special Memories Zoo is 30 minutes away and the owners of Animal Haven Zoo have NEVER visited and they hadn't even heard of most of the zoos that I'd just gone through this week. How is that possible? I told them that I'd been to more than 400 zoos (something I've only told a few people on this trip) and the owners treated me like a rock star. They started telling other visitors that I'd come all the way to Canada to see their tiny zoo, they asked me a lot of questions about other zoos and after I spent 1.5 hours walking around we sat down and had a good chat. They were so nice that it almost pains me to say that much of their beloved zoo is garbage. There is a Bobcat living in a 6-foot metal cage, a Coati in another metal cage not much larger, 11 tigers in very small enclosures and African Lions temporarily living in shoeboxes. The owners are delusional and think that their little zoo is wonderful and I didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. They asked what exhibits they could improve and when I mentioned a couple of them (like the black Leopard cage) they became ultra-defensive and took me outside to show me another side exhibit that was connected to the main one. Never mind that the leopard was sitting in a small cement bunker...they live in a fantasy world.
Anyway, I behaved myself and we had a lovely chat. The man is 72 years old, his wife is 70 and they want to run the zoo for another 8 years. At that point they plan on selling everything (the house next door, the main building, the entire zoo) for approximately 2 million dollars and if no one buys the zoo then they've already checked out prices on bulldozers. I'm not even joking as they plan to demolish it all if they can't find a seller as their grandchildren “ain't worth more than some hairy monkey nuts and they ain't getting the joint for free”. Anyone interested on ZooChat? The annual visitor count is only 20,000-25,000 and I don't even know how they manage to eke out a living but the couple work 7 days a week from May to October every year. They have one employee on per day and then it is these two senior citizens running the gift shop, cafe, maintenance and doing everything around the zoo. I honestly don't even know how they manage it all and they never get a day off until the winter-time when they are snowed in on some days. They've got at least 16 big cats, 9 bears and another hundred other animals and these two seniors are doing everything with little to no help. They even told me that they don't bother with giving any of their animals annual checkups and most of the veterinary work that needs to be done they do themselves. Holy crap!
Your Menominee Park review is just what I was expecting. I visited in 2016, and agree that the wolf, elk, and otter habitats are easily the best part, most of the rest of the zoo is underwhelming, and there is a promising future if the Master Plan follows the examples of the wolf and elk exhibits.
I real shame about Glacier Ridge and Animal Haven, as when I was younger, I can remember seeing the former from the highway, and driving past the exit for the latter. I've never actually visited either though.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
I knew you were in Wisconsin (where I grew up) on my birthday, but didn't know you were so close to my hometown (Sheboygan). You got to within 45 minutes of it!
I would hope the zoo in Oshkosh will someday be better, as Oshkosh is, b'gosh, a decent-sized city. It's absolutely NUTS how many of these zoo owners never (or almost never) visit other zoos. Good grief, Charlie Brown, wouldn't you think they'd want to get out and see what other zoos are doing to give them good ideas for how to improve their zoo? But since they're about to sell their zoo, hey, maybe we'll soon have a real American version of "We Bought a Zoo"!
Two million seems like a ripoff. I mean land in rural Wisconsin can't be that expensive and it's not like the zoo or animal collection is anything special. You could buy land somewhere and start a small zoo from scratch for a fraction of that cost.
I lament the absence of mustelids in mainstream zoos, yet it seems like these tiny homegrown zoos you are visiting you have seen spotted genet at least twice and American mink at least twice. What gives? Get some in the AZA!
Funny enough, one of the very few things both the far left and far right in Germany can currently agree on is their Anti-Americanism, with the left being more vocal about it. Unlike his predecessor (at least in the first years of his presidency), Trump's is not very positively portrayed in the German media, and this might rub off on some German citizens. However, this is not an apology for being rude. I assume this took place in one of the larger German cities?
Well, I assume that these are byproducts of the commercial farming industry of said reptiles down south, which, at least in regard to the American alligator, help to sustain the wild populations. You might not like to decorate your desk with alligator heads, but obviously others do.
I thought you were an upcoming start-up entrepreneur? So acquiring this sum should be a piece of cake for you, shouldn't it?
In general, I'm surprised that so many roadside zoos still exist in today's America. But after all, it's a vast country. It just makes me very sad to think of all the zoo animals that have to survive in such conditions till their very end, for the amusement of a few.
I can assure you that this isn't limited to the US of A.
Yeah, there's always a good story to tell down at the pub.
I thought you were an upcoming start-up entrepreneur? So acquiring this sum should be a piece of cake for you, shouldn't it?
Really? This is news to me.
Oh wow I forgot about that. Guess you didn't though, probably keeping tabs on all of us
. Hmm, maybe I was on to something
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
It was at some Black Forest (Schwartzwald) rural restaurant in SW Germany.
What shocks me about the directors of these little zoos having never visited any other zoos is that this is just plain Business 101! If you want to improve your product, you check out what your competitors' are selling. As a travel book zoo author, I can assure you all that I've bought every possible competing zoo guide and have thoroughly looked over how they are writing their books.
Fair enough.
which might explain why none of these roadside zoos has managed to achieve a higher status and are bit by bit going out of business (hopefully). Just as there are plenty of businesses that see no need to improve or change as long as they meander along.
By now, I think we're all aware what you do for a living. ^^
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Thanks for correcting my German! I'm definitely not fluent in your language, but it is my best second language, having taken it in school.
Good point on why the small zoos are not prospering. It's just mind-boggling that they wouldn't see this slight bit of outside research isn't obvious to them! I guess they just aren't very smart -- despite SL telling us how very, very nice most of them are. This lack of brain power also helps us understand why they are supporting the President so strongly (IMHO).
Actually, I don't write books "for a living" (or I'd be poor and starving). It's only a hobby. And I'm not bragging -- just using this as an example.
I wouldn't jump to false conclusions and generelly judge these people without meeting them in person. Some of them might not be Mensa aspirants, but they could be "bauernschlau" - a German term that you're certainly familiar with. Introducing new ideas and more efficient concepts to people used to their daily grind can be hard and exhausting, especially on the countryside. I'm actually more surprised about the fact that there seem to be no official agencies, such as a federal veterinary office, that check on these zoos on a regular base and make sure that they improve their business and husbandry in accordance with modern quality guidelines - for the sake of the animals.
It might not be your intention, but the reference is becoming so repetitive that it reminds me a bit of Old Cato's Ceterum censeo.