The Zoo

We were very disappointed last year when the Catskill Game Farm closed. We'd made a couple of trips there over the last few years and enjoyed our visits.

So we were pleasantly surprised to find a small zoo in Sussex County New Jersey. I'm not quite sure how the DH came across Space Farms, but after discovering it, he thought it would be a great day trip for our little family. He decided to take yesterday off and we ventured there for the day. For some strange reason we never think about camps and summer schools having the same "great day trip" idea. We arrived at the same time as a bus full of Yeshiva students.

When we walked into the area where we bought the tickets I was very surprised to see a zebra skin and several mounted heads of different animals--kind of seemed strange for a zoo, at least to me.

We arrived around lunch time and apparently it was also lunch time for the animals. It was a little surprising to see a large turkey buzzard eating some sort of dead fowl. A little more surprising was the large piles of raw meat feed to the different types of bears (Syrian, Black and Kodiak). But what was truly disconcerting... the dead fawns feed to the lions and tigers. Now obviously these animals need feeding, and should be feed whatever is appropriate, but I have to wonder at the feeding time--right smack in the middle of the day with a park filled with children. It was a big yikes moment for me and the hubby. But it didn't seem to bother the child. I will say to my untrained eye, all the animals looked well fed especially the lions, tigers and bears.

Last night I was talking to one of my BILs that grew up not far from the zoo and he wasn't the least bit surprised by the feeding time. Those of you familiar with the X-Files will probably find his comparison to the family that owns the zoo to the bizarre Peacock family episode interesting to say the least. Which isn't very kind comparison and I apologize for it, but still felt the need to include it :)