We'll continue the visit to Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo today with the rest of the exhibits...
Past the aforementioned macaques and sun bears, we come to another of Catoctin's less impressive exhibits, which houses an Amur leopard. To be honest, I was afraid to sneeze too close to the exhibit, lest the claptrap construction fall apart and let the leopard out. While it was relatively naturalistic, especially compared to the sun bear exhibit, it was small and felt unsubstantial. It reminded me of one of my earliest recollections of Catoctin - reading in the news 10 or 15 years ago about how a keeper was mauled by a jaguar when it burst in on her through an inadequately-strengthened door.
Speaking of jaguar, that species of big cat was located just around the bend, though in an enclosure that, while not much larger than the one for the leopard, at least looked sturdier. The jaguar heralded the entrance to a small South American area, with iguana, capybara, a surprisingly nice building of fruit bats, and, nicest of all, a naturalistic, large, moated island with Patagonian cavy, southern screamers, and greater rhea. Non-geographic exhibits in the area included a few Asian and African residents - Visayan warty pig (another species that was until recently very rare even within AZA, and is still uncommon outside of it), binturong, and an aviary of Abdim's storks. Nearby is an especially beautiful koi pond, a feature that I often think of as a waste of space in zoos, but I do have to admit that this was perhaps the most attractive I have ever seen. Visitors can obtain chow from nearby machines to feed the fish. An attractive exhibit of red-crowned crane completes the garden-like atmosphere.
Like the most recent non-AZA zoo I reviewed, Lake Tobias Wildlife Park, Catoctin boasts a safari ride, which roles over 25-acres of pasture that it grazed by a mixture of "fancy domestics" as well as wild ungulates, such as bison, Plains zebra, mouflon, and camels, as well as ratites, for an extra cost. I opted not to take the ride, though I'm sure it would be of interest to many visitors. The launching site is home to exhibits of patas monkeys, marabou stork, and leopard tortoises, as well as a small rocky mountain watched over by aoudad (Barbary sheep). From this area, it is possible to see some of the ungulates; I observed bison very close to the fence while I watched.
The North American area consists of a barn inhabited by owls, two alligator pools - one for the small fry, one for the big guys, and yards for coyote and collared peccary (the latter a species that I used to see very often, but not nearly as much anymore, being replaced by the more endangered Chacoan peccary in many zoos). A new exhibit for wolves is slated to be opened zoo - in the meantime, the wolves can be seen in a so-so exhibit elsewhere in the park. Eurasian lynx, presumably a stand in for Canada lynx, occupy an exhibit that strikes me as much nicer than those that the leopard or jaguar got. Tucked away around the zoo are aviaries for a few birds that you don't see too often - white-necked raven, white-eared pheasant, Barbary falcon, and yellow-headed vulture among them. There are also a few petting barns where you can pet and feed some hoofed animals, both domestic and wild (this is the first time that I ever saw a scimitar-horned oryx - and an adult at that - in a petting zoo, though thankfully visitors could only reach in, not actually go inside with it).
Catoctin, like many unaccredited zoos I've been to, is a mixture of the very nice and the somewhat sketchy. I have no basis for comparison, so for all I know the nicer stuff I saw represents new exhibits that are gradually replacing older, outdated ones. If that's the case, than I certainly hope that the bear and big cat habitats are next up for replacement. I'd heard some rough things about animal care here, but mostly from decades past, so I was willing to give a look - I'd hate for someone to judge my zoo based on how we ran things in the 1970s. I did enjoy the chance to see so many novel species, including a handful that I'd never seen before (surprisingly at the apparent expense of species that I'd expect to see, such as tigers, spider monkeys, and other non-AZA staples).
I'd be interested to see what direction Catoctin goes in the future: what new exhibits they unveil, what animals they obtain (or are forced to phase out as they become no longer available), any word of their animal care practices, and whether they'd consider joining AZA.
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