Tri-state Zoo closing down (Cumberland, MD)

Tri-State Zoological Park to close next month

Yet another roadside bites the dust this year. Tri-state Zoo in Cumberland, Maryland will be permanently closing October 2 (the article is from early September).

If anyone was planning on visiting this place you better do it soon, it closes next week!

 

Has it been open all this time?! I've been trying to find out if it was open or closed for 4+ years and never could find any info that wasn't already years old itself.

 

No one feel the need to book travel and rush out. You aren’t missing anything

 

I'm not 3.5 hours away and I have a BIG trip starting next weekend. But I would have stopped on previous travels if I had known. More out of curiosity than anything, I know the history.

 

PETA is coordinating the transfers from a closing roadside zoo?! That is awful news. I'm all good with some of the worst roadside zoos closing down, but at the hands of PETA? Really?

 

There's only a couple of really old animals left. The big cats and whatnot were removed years ago.

 

I trust a roadside zoo to take better care of animals than PETA, who would probably just euthanize them.

 

For as much as we love to dump on them (and I do), there are past precedents for PETA working with AZA and government authorities to place rescued animals in accredited zoos, the case of the Suarez Seven being the most notable.

 

Detroit Zoo and Oakland Zoo are among the facilities that will receive the remaining animals, include most curiously two Asiatic black bears.

 

Maybe an AZA accredited zoo. By the way, what animals did the park have?

 

An article from unreliable sources mention iguanas, a pot-bellied pig, a squirrel monkey and the two bears among over sixty animal rescues. That's all it covered unfortunately.

 

Why are the asiatic bears most curious?

For mammals they were down to the two bears, a singer, a raccoon, a skunk, a kinkajou, a few individual small primates, a fox, and a few domestics, maybe another species or two. Most of the animals have left over the last decade or so.

 

Is Detroit getting the bears or Oakland????

 

They were the only animal I was aware of being moved that isn't common in captivity already or any longer, although the kinkajou is another interesting one!

I am happy for all of the animals recieving better arrangements but the fates of the rarities makes me wonder more.

 

Because of their rarity. It seems a bit easy to forget but there's only a few public holders left.

 

Does anyone know where the bears are going, and/or what their ages are? Currently, the US AZA population is four asiatic black bears- one at Virginia Zoo, one at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and the two bears at Roger Williams Park Zoo. All four of which are elderly. To the best of my knowledge, there are 20-30 asiatic black bears in non-AZA Zoos and at least one non-AZA zoo breeding them, Metro Richmond Zoo.

 

I wonder how old Tri-state's asiatic black bears are. If they are on the younger side, we could see the species continuing to have a presence in AZA zoos for a longer while, considering that the four other asiatic black bears in the AZA are so up there in age.

Specifically, RWPZ's masterplan has them slated to keep asiatic black bears after their current animals pass, and while I always assumed they would not follow through with this (given the difficulty in acquiring more bears), perhaps now there is a chance that they may be able to do so if they were to take in the rescues. Although it sounds like the rescues may be going to Oakland and Detroit, which may limit this possibility.

 

Full list of cooperating facilities.

The bears seem to be female if that makes a difference.

 

I guess I don't think of them as that rare, there's 20 facilities with them. I've seen them several times this year.

 

I don't know their exact ages but I'm sure they're really old. The places hasn't acquired anything in years, yet alone a large carnivore.