Naples Zoo Naples Zoo News

Naples Zoo is prepping for new Black Bear Habitat:

Naples Zoo: Lions, tigers and now BEARS, oh my! : Naples : Naples Daily News


And a link to the zoo's website:
Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens

 

The new Black Bear exhibit has opened...

Naples exhibit helps us learn how to co-exist with bears | news-press.com | The News-Press

 

The zoo is planning the next step of its future. Coastal Africa will be the theme with a host of new species for the zoo.

Transported to Africa: Proposed interactive exhibit at Naples Zoo will put people in a scene Naples Daily News

 

The zoo now has two new exhibits. These included the blackbuck exhibit (replacing the area where the kangaroos were) and the striped hyena exhibit (which is next to the spotted hyena exhibit). Also, the giraffe feeding area in their preview exhibit opens on June 11.

Help Bring Giraffes to Naples

 

I plan to visit this zoo in soon, and noticed not much is said about Naples on ZooChat. So I decided to created a thread about news from it.
FOSSA CUBS!!! CAN"T WAIT TO SEE THEM!
The Fosa: Madagascar's Legendary Carnivore
Here's some more news
Naples Zoo: New at the Zoo
Stay tuned for more updates!

 

Do not get too excited. I visited this zoo several years ago and was sorely disappointed. The website made it look much nicer than it is in person.

 

Yeh, don't get too excited. Here's my photos of the zoo:

Naples FL Zoo - a set on Flickr

The zoo has a few good exhibits but it really doesn't amount to much. The Miami Dade Metro Zoo is the best zoo in Florida. It's a few hours from Naples although it doesn't have a fossa. I went by the fossa exhibit when I was at the Naples Zoo but it wasn't on display. I think they have some sort of a show that they bring it out for.

I will say the most exciting zoo display I've ever seen involved a fossa. I was at the Cleveland Ohio zoo when I went into the building that housed the fossa display. I heard perhaps 100 or more people yelling and screaming like they were at some sort of sporting event. They were all standing around the fossa exhibit. The keepers had placed a paper mache ball with a picture of a lemur on it at the end of a rope in the fossa exhibit. That fossa was going nuts trying to "capture" its prey. I had to hold my camera over the heads of the crowd and just snap away in the hope I could get a worthwhile photo. Here's what I wound up with:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5008765049/"]IMG_0719 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5008767127/"]IMG_0717 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5008769135/"]IMG_0716 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5009381462/"]IMG_0712 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5009383408/"]IMG_0706 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5008780959/"]IMG_0703 -1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

I remember thinking later that I was glad something like a fossa but the size of a leopard wasn't around in Africa gobbling up us hairless primates. If so we probably wouldn't be here now. That beast was absolutely tireless and relentless. Unlike cats fossas never quit and never seem to get tired.


BTW, I have no idea why an Adobe Flash box appears under the hyperlink. I tried 5 different link formats without success. If you click on the hyperlink above the flash box it should take you to the photos.

 

I have a couple of questions. What were the good exhibits at Naples? Also, I looked at your photos and saw the tigers. Are those Malayan as they claim, or Indochinese as ISIS claims? I also noticed there were ocelots in your photos, and I just wanted to say their exhibit has been renovated into a honey badger exhibit. Thanks for all the info!

 

What comprises a good exhibit for you and others may be very different for me. So far as I'm concerned if the exhibit is such that a half way decent photograph is very hard or impossible to obtain then it's not a good exhibit. Those without cameras will probably not care.

That said, the ocelots were the best exhibit for me and I think my photos of them demonstrate that. Also, I always photograph the information placard next to the exhibit and try to have it next to the photo of the animal in the flickr photostream. According to this:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/5184966633/in/set-72157625286758981/"]IMG_7825 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

they are indeed Malayan tigers. I don't know how to distinguish the difference.

I was disappointed Naples FL in general and with the Naples Zoo in particular. The giraffe exhibit had limited hours, the fossa was not on display, etc. At least the people were nice and the wilderness areas weren't too far away.

 

The giraffe exhibit is only temporary according to their website. The fossas should be on display in their exhibit, so I guess it was just unlucky timing you visited Naples. I also noticed that you said the fossas are brought out during a show. That is for 2 fossa cubs that were rejected by their mother, and the other 2 are on exhibit with their mother. I also noticed that you said the ocelot exhibit had the best views for photos. Hopefully I can get some good photos of the honey badgers there (I had a newfound respect for Honey badgers have inspired me after the viral video about them.) Here's a video of the zoo's honey badgers

 

I'd probably wet my pants if I saw a fossa like that.

 

Can you tell me the worst and best parts of the zoo? I'd like to know in advance of visiting the zoo, as I'll be going soon.

 

There were no best parts and the whole trip was a waste of my time. However that was many years ago, so I hope they have improved.

 

The zoo has been breaking its all-time annual attendance record in recent years, and now averages around 300,000 visitors per year. Looking at the website, there are some rarely exhibited animals at the zoo: spotted hyena, striped hyena, ratel (one of only 4 American zoos with the species), fossa, kinkajou, dingo, Cuban crocodile, 4 species of lemur and 3 species of gibbon. An impressive line-up, but does anyone know if all of those animals are actually on exhibit? I hope to visit the zoo this summer and the new black bear and giraffe exhibits (a temporary one) seem to indicate that this small zoo is making steady progress.

 

I hope you are right. I am not the most critical of zoos on ZooChat, so maybe visiting Naples will be a little more enjoyable for me than for you. Unfortunately, I don't think any exhibits were improved, but some new exhibits were added in recent years, like for leopards, giraffes, fossas, honey badgers in the old ocelot exhibit, and black bears in the largest black bear exhibit east of the Mississipi River.

 

Interesting article about a controversial topic at the zoo.
Lily pond at Naples Zoo to be paved as part of expansion Naples Daily News

 

Well, I just visited Naples recently, and I have some mixed feelings on the place. Some of both Arizona Docent's and grafxman's claims are true. There are some pretty shabby exhibits there, and while there were some exhibits that had poor viewing, none compared to the Yellow-Backed Duiker viewing, which is quite possibly the worst viewing for a zoo animal in the world. I didn't visit Naples to see the best exhibits in the world; rather, I visited to see some species that I haven't seen before. However, not all the exhibits were horrible. There were no Congo Gorilla Forest's at Naples, but there were some decent exhibits there.
Overall, Naples doesn't rank the highest of the zoos I've visited, but it does kind of remind me of my Beardsley Zoo, which is another small zoo with a small budget. Although some exhibits were bad (example: Leopard Rock), Naples did have some decent exhibits (example: Black Bear Hammock).

 

Latest updates about the pond situation.
Naples Zoo: Pond Update

 

Already econmically troubled Naples faces more problems with time and money with alternatives to paving the pond.
Alternatives to paving zoo pond could cost $720,000, delay parking project a year Naples Daily News