Earlier this month, I posted about our trip to see Disney On Ice in Hershey PA. Well, we spent the night and decided to play tourist the next day. A field trip, so to say. We hadn’t really planned where to go in advance but ended up at ZooAmerica. We hadn’t really thought about going before because it seemed rather small. Yes, it is small compared to other zoos; however, there are a lot of great animals to see and information for learning.
ZooAmerica dates back to 1905 when Milton Hershey and Franz Zinner met and decided to build a zoo. You can read the history here. What is amazing to me is that the zoo was free for many years.
ZooAmerica is devoted to animals of the North American continent. Even so, there are definitely some unique creatures there. I’m not sure that I had seen a Roseate Spoonbill before, but they were beautiful!
In fact, one of them made sure that I had the perfect picture of his spoon bill.
We have been interested in alligators lately after watching the Gator Boys. Alligators are such interesting creatures, and…
it was nice to see them up close without any fear of getting hurt. What a great view!
There are a couple of themed buildings with animals. One of them is a Southwest environment with roadrunners, owls, and tortoises. Another building is devoted to animals that are active in the dark. It was something to see the Ocelots run back and forth. For the most part, it didn’t seem like the animals could sense us, except for this Swift Fox. He seemed to know when we were moving and would follow us.
Another of my favorite are the river otters. The kids and I could watch them play all day long. Of course, I wish they had a larger swimming hole as it seemed quite cramped for them.
They are so graceful swimming and gliding through the water from side-to-side. It was nice to see them come up close to the glass to see us.
Then, there were a lot of squirrels all over the place, and they were fun to watch, too. Here is one that we found very humorous. If you can read the sign, it says, “It’s for the Birds!” Except, no one told the squirrel this, and we enjoyed watching him hang by his tail to get a bite to eat.
Another favorite was this bear. There were two, brother and sister. The sister was lying down taking a nap. The brother was up looking for food and taking a drink. We’d love to go back sometime and see the bears swimming in their pond filled with fish!
There were even a couple of Bald Eagles. It was interesting to see how wide their wing span is and also to see how closely my daughter measures up to it.
There are lots more animals to see at ZooAmerica! As I said, it is not a huge zoo, but it is a zoo that is enjoyable to visit. Lots of places to sit and watch the animals (and people). I think it would be a nice way to take a break from the heat and the pace over at Hershey Park in the summer time.
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