My friend and I left Sunday July 20TH to video tape the Zoo at about 2:30. On my agenda was to video tape the bad along with the good. As you drive in to Gentry there about 5 or 6 tiny, worn out signs directing you the zoo. As you drive on the country road towards the zoo, (it's really not a bad drive), you can tell when you are coming up to it. On the right hand side of the road you see about 3 camper trailers, a steel building, and a converted bus. To be blunt it’s an eye sore, and it looks unprofessional.
As you pull up to the gate and pay your $7.00 admission you can already tell that it’s not going to the most pleasant experience. The ‘gatekeeper’ gives you the quick run down, ‘Once you pass the cattle guard stay in your vehicles and leave your windows up. The rest of the area is a walkthrough. Don’t give any of the animals a chance to bite or scratch you.’ Not like I was planning on it anyway but, still an intimidating thought, and encourages me to respect the animals and there space all the more so.
We park in the dirt parking lot and get ready to try and have some fun despite the circumstances of why we were here. Not sure where to head to first we kind of stood and looked around for a bit, already hot, it was about 95 degrees.
The concession stand looks about normal, there were two travel concession stands out side with people giving them their orders. I have been up there once before and have decided never to go back. A little stinky and little nasty makes me not want to eat food from there again. The bathrooms I’m sure are still unkempt. I’d rather pee in the woods then visit them again.
We see the baby animal cage about 100 ft in front of us and I’m happy to note that it's in a better spot then two weeks ago when I visited. A little larger and a lot more shade. Still, they're young ones and need a lot more TLC then their older counterparts. We decide to make a circle through the park to not miss anything and to time how long it took to get around to the babies at the end. More then likely they will still be out.
So to our left was a rocky enclosure with a small building in the middle for shelter. In the enclosure was animals that looked like a pig with fur. The sign said Cavies but I know that Cavies are a breed of guinea pig so I am not sure if that is what these are or not. I am not even sure if they are classified as a rodent. A mildly interesting animal but I know nothing about them. Some other unidentified animals were in the enclosure that some what resemble a wallaby, without a tail.
We see a pen full of guineas and other chickens. Guineas are the weirdest and probably the dumbest bird you’ll ever see. There a good watch dog though because they’ll start squawking as soon as someone comes around. So as you can imagine with a steady flow of people at a zoo the squawk all the time. Not my favorite bird but interesting none the less. There are some other exotic looking birds called East African Crowned Crane. They have an amazing yellow crest that looks so fine and sticks out all over, white circles around their eyes and a black coat trimmed with white and yellow completes the ensemble. A tall and lanky looking bird in small pen is sad to see, but they seemed content.
Not even a yard away is an 8x10 pen with a Lynx or Bobcat in it. Lying in the cool grass panting in the extreme heat. There was a platform about 3 ft up with a barrel at the end of it, a den I suppose. At least it was covered from the sun. These conditions seem poor but he’s a lot better then some of the others. At least he had some cool grass and some shade. The Lynx is a cuddly looking animal; he’s small with little tufts of fur coming out his ears. I bet he would pack a mean bite if I upset him though, especially if he’s cranky from the heat.
There were two sheds around these pens teeming with flies and trash. I would hope that they didn’t use these to keep food for these birds or any other animal.
We didn’t have all day so I needed to move on. Before we walk down a little hill towards were we see some camels in a circular pen we see two small cages on the ground. I’m using the word cages a lot because there is nothing but cages around. Some Wild-Wilderness. Anyway in the cages are some rabbits and kittens. They’re so cute! But it makes me sad because it’s so hot outside. My friend reaches in to pet one of the kittens to make sure he is still alive. He was just sleeping though and as soon as she started to pet him his little paws started needing, very cute! He just wanted a little love. Over to the bunnies. My friend wanted to touch one so bad but they were a little scared and kept running from her hand. So instead of scaring them any more we decided to leave them alone.
We turn around to see the pen with two camels, a little shed used for developing pictures and putting them on T-Shirts, and another circular pen with the pony ride contraption with two ponies. In between though is a picnic table, lying out on a picnic table are two snakes. We were both a little nervous and a little excited now. It's hard to over come my fear and reach out and touch one. It was not at all what I expected but, I could feel the strength run across my hand. I decided to go a little further to overcome the fear and pick one up and let it run through my hands.
My god! The best feeling in the world. I was so excited that I had actually done it that I had to quit videotaping for a while and handed the camera over to my friend so she could tape for a while, while I was enjoying this experience. One of the staff was behind me tending to the camels that were harnessed up and ready to give rides, more about that in a bit, encouraged me to put the snake on my shoulders. Even though hesitant I did. I don’t understand why I did this. I really didn’t want to but figuring he knew what he was talking about I did.
Then he gets the smart idea to put the other one on me. I’m understandably a little shaky now, but I could deal with it, then came the third one out of nowhere (remember there were only two on the table) and final one and now I was scared. I had three heads, three bodies, and three curious snakes to worry about and still keep my wits while overcoming a fear. The first one I picked up, an Argentinean boa, the red tail boa, and the python were now searching my hair for a nice spot to rest. Sorry but I got a little freaked and asked someone to take them off me, plus they were getting heavy. Once I had one I was content again cause I could actually know what was going on. Phew! I was glad that was over.
Next, it was my friends turn and again the camel keeper throws them all on top of her and she is about to freak out because the boa decided it liked the shade under her hat. Now she was scared so down went the camera, because at this point no keeper was around, and I removed all of them tediously, heck I still don’t want to hurt ‘em!
Introduce smart guy. Okay so while I am rescuing my friend from the snake dog pile. Joe blow comes by and does the whole he bit off my finger trick. Now fun and games are fine but when I ask a question I want an answer. So I asked ‘How often do they eat?’ Smart guy replies ‘About once a day at this time’ Ha ha, good laugh, I ask again. Same response, I probably asked about 4 times and never got the answer I needed. Oh ya and these snakes are attracted to white tennis shoes too, whatever. So I gave up. Helped my friend take of the boa constrictor and gently lay it on the picnic table. Yes picnic table. There was no enclosure for theses animals to protect others or protect themselves from harm. As I recall, the camel keeper is the only staff around as these beautiful constrictors laze about. It’s a little scary to think that there is really no supervision for them.
As I was reading over this I remembered the rabbits and the kittens over by the tree. Now I’m not a snake but I would assume that the kittens and the rabbits would look pretty interesting to them. And since no one was really paying attention to them. I would assume they wouldn’t hesitate to make a meal out of one of those.
As my friend was observing the snakes, I over head the camel keeper talk to another visitor about the two camels they have, for camel rides. He seemed to enjoy talking about them and it was a comforting thought that the camels had someone looking after them that sounded like he knew what he was doing. Maybe he should stick to camel rides and leave the snake wrangling to someone else. For the 2-½ hours we were there the camels were left outside to give camel rides. Don’t you think they deserve a break? Same thing with the pony rides, same two horses giving rides. Maybe they should bring them in for rest periods.
There is a row of cages in front of us now and I can here the chirping of birds, so we head over. There are probably about 10 cages with different parrots, cockatoos, parakeets and lovebirds. Birds are so neat. We hear several of them calling hello to us. The parrots had really vivid colors. Red, green, and blue feathers and white around their eyes. They seemed to enjoy watching us just as much as we enjoyed looking at them. There was one cockatoo that was talking to us so we went over. He said the usual hello and was very interested in us. He strutted past his cage and then hopped up on his branch with his back to us. So my friend reached her fingers through the cage and scratched his back. He loved it! Stretching out his feathers, shaking his head and tucking it back in. He was a cool bird. We looked at each cage and found that they were probably sufficient. But you know, what is a bird known for? Flying right? They can’t really fly in there, so that’s a little sad. On the ground in front of one cage was some sort of mess on the ground teeming with flies again. Disgusting, I had to video tape it because there is a lot of stuff like that.
We walk up another hill and see a small cage with two tortoises. And a fairly good size too. One was asleep up against its cage with his head tucked under a little. He seemed a little squished but he did have opportunity to back out. So I really don’t know if he was comfortable or not. Next to their cage was a round cage with a momma Peacock and her 4 or 5 babies. It seemed to me that mom wasn’t use to being in her cage and was pacing, looking for a way to get out perhaps?
Across from all of them is a row of more cages, I told you I was going to use that a lot, of monkeys. We decide to head up the road beside us to continue our circle. There is a fairly large field with one Zebra in it. They have 3 different species, or breeds of Zebras listed on it but I don’t know how to identify the difference so I couldn’t tell you which one was in there. There is a smaller enclosure further up from the large field with two camels. A mom and her baby. Its really small and rocky and it looked like they were trying to graze some rocks. That was really sad. Especially since it was so small.
We hear some commotion walking down the road, and it’s hard to believe that it’s coming out of one pig. I have heard some stories of pigs chasing you down so we decided to give him the whole road and take a pit stop by the chimpanzees.
There are two chimps in the, what I am guessing, 10x8 cage. There are some tires and some worn out toys but the two are sitting on the bottom not very enthused. One was sleeping and the other was sitting up looking at us blowing raspberries. I don’t know whether or not he was showing he disappointment in us or if he was trying to be funny. It was funny to us, so we blew them back. He got bored and decided to lie down too.
The pig had made it’s way down the road so I decided it would be safe to go back on the road. There was a long barn to our right as we walked up. The entranced was blocked so we couldn’t go in.
Now I know it’s a little gross but I video taped a baby pig trying to mate with a larger pig. I did this for a reason. First of all why is someone not around to make sure this doesn’t happen? I’m sure it’s not all that healthy for the little one to be doing that. Plus the larger one could get mad and hurt the little guy. It was just such a weird thing.
On the other side of the long barn was the giraffe. This was probably the most heartbreaking thing I saw. It was situated between the two barns an open but really small space, in my opinion. He has one tree, with no leaves on it. He was at the far edge of the corral and I can only assume he was looking longingly at the huge tree on the other side of the fence that he could barely reach. There were some bales of hay in with him as well. Now from seeing other zoos I can say that this was not normal. Usually they have high bins for them to reach into to eat. It’s more natural for them since they get their food off leaves on trees in the wild. Also at zoos they have bigger enclosures.
Across from the giraffe corral was the metal building and three or four travel trailers that we saw from the road. Definitely the eyesore that I predicted. Now I can understand that there needs to be people living on the premises, but they certainly can pick up trash and make it more presentable.
We walk up a little more and see a green trailer that says “Reptiles of the Rainforest”. As we are walking up to our right is more pigs, and some weird metal buildings. They kind of look like grain silos but I’m not sure. We get a little closer to this dilapidated trailer and smell what can only be identified as dead animal. It’s a little scary walking in. There are some shed snake skins on the floor and I am a little nervous because I’m afraid someone was going to drop something on me again like earlier with the snakes. There are a whole bunch of fake flowers covering the ceiling of the trailer. I suppose to give the ambience that you’re in the rain forest. It sure was hot enough to be. If it was 95degrees earlier it was probably 100 to 105 degrees in the metal trailer.
To our left is a gigantic Burmese python. It looked like it just had his meal for the year. But he was doubled up. The snake was probably about 10 to 15ft and his cage a mere 5 to 6ft and only about a foot and a half wide. I don’t know much about pythons, but I would assume he would enjoy curling up, or maybe stretching to full length. The back of his cage, there’s that word again, is a fake rock wall and some small trees that he wouldn’t even be able to lay across, so their a little shabby looking, the front is covered in a plexi-glass. I feel really sorry for him. Or maybe it’s a she and she’s so huge because she has eggs? Like I said I don’t know much about Burmese pythons. Across from him/her is another Burmese Python. It’s possibly a mate to the other and in the same type of cage. She, or he, is a tad smaller not quite as wide. Still doubled up like the other because its cage is to small.
We walk a couple of steps and see three albino Burmese pythons. Small cages yet again although these three are a lot smaller so they can sit curled up. They still can’t stretched to full length but I suppose snakes spend most of there time curled up anyway. All three cages were full of flies and stink. The first python had what looked like a sore on the top of his nose. That struck me as a little odd as well. My friend and I could just feel the sadness. The first snake was real inquisitive of us and tasted the air of his window when she put her hand up. I wanted to cry.
Across from the albinos was the green iguana cage. Two smaller lizards that I don’t think were iguanas were lying on the big branch sleeping. Hundreds of flies buzzed around them. They seemed unfazed. Now this was the worst thing I had seen so far. Lying on the bottom of the cage was a dead iguana or lizard. It has been there for quite awhile because he was dried out mummified like. Inches away were the rest of their iguanas about 5 or 6 piled on top of each other and fairly small too. I have seen some green iguanas in Cozumel and they were probably about ten times the size of these.
That was the end of the exhibit as we were walking out to our left before you turn to go down the stairs was a piling of junk swarming again with flies and reeking of a dead animal. Now I’m not sure what was under the gray tarp but it wouldn’t have been to my benefit to see what it was.
We walk out and kind of reflect a little on what we have seen so far. Some interesting things but some very disturbing stuff as well. I was really sad about the whole reptile trailer. It felt so sad in there. Maybe I’m wrong but my friend shared my feelings. It was just not right!
A little depressed we make our way back down towards the monkeys again and stop by the donkeys. Our spirits lifted a little when they came up to greet us. Some baby donkeys and a couple of Shetland ponies. They had a really big corral but no trees or grass, just rocks and dirt. They donkeys were now uninterested because we had no food. By the way, are hot dog buns a good food source for a variety of animals? I’m not so sure.
We make our way back over to the monkeys and decide to look at all of them this time. The chimps are still lying around, doing what they do best I guess. There are several different baboons in there small cages sitting around looking bored. One baboon sat a little higher in his cage just looking around. I bet its weird for them to have people looking at them all day. I bet they get tired of it. They’re just so neat though. The one blue monkey was running around his cage bouncing off the walls earlier but buy the time we got down to him he must have tired out because he did two little tricks and then just sat there, almost embarrassed like. It was funny. All the cages were the same size, metal and raised about 3 feet off the ground. They looked uncomfortable to me.
A little ways down were the Asian porcupines. They had a big cage, concrete floor a raised platform for them to sit on and some little metal buildings for shelter on the bottom. I think I counted 4 of them. It was hard to tell they were all a little squished together, sleeping. With their feet spread out behind them and there bellies on the ground. Very cute. Oh and contrary to popular belief they do not shoot they’re quills at you, they just fall out. You can hear my lame commentary on the video.
As we were watching the porcupines, I stopped video tapping for a while. I wish I hadn’t because as were watching them, we hear someone blaring there horn up by the chimpanzee’s. I turn and see a red pick up aimed at the chimps. I quickly turned my video camera back on and aimed it at them. One of the chimps had climbed to the top of the cage, almost looking a little scared. I recognized the passenger in the car as the lady that was sitting at the gate when I was here two weeks ago. I assume that they were the owners. Ross and Freda Wilmoth. Why in the heck are they beeping at the chimps? They watch the chimps for a second and then drive on down past the monkeys.
We start to walk on because I see some cages over in the grassy area and some chickens. As we are walking the monkeys and the lemurs down a little further on the way back to the entrance start freaking out hollering and carrying on. I turned my video camera on just to get the back of the Wilmoth’s truck driving past them. Now I don’t know if the monkeys and lemurs were agitated, happy or excited that they drove pass whatever the case it was pretty interesting. We continue down to the grassy area. There were some more chickens and a really pretty pheasant type bird. There were about 5 small coops for the chickens to roost in that were in bad need of a paint job. Not many chickens around so we headed back to the lemurs and monkeys.
These were the smaller monkeys, Capuchins. Very cuddly looking animals but I have heard they bite. Their cages are shaded by trees and have a dirt floor. A couple tires are swinging with some old toys. The Capuchins seem hot and a lot of them were lying out on the bars that were holding the cage up or in there little barrels. Same thing with the lemurs. I really don’t blame them. The heat was starting to get to me too. One of the capuchin monkeys picked up a walnut in its tail and carried it around. It was so cute! One of the lemurs we came across was lying on the dirt floor of his cage. He didn’t look so good; at first I thought he was dead. He looked at us when we came up to him but stayed lying on the ground and didn’t even move. As we were walking past all these cages there were tons of Emu’s walking around. They’re a very intimidating bird and I am sure given the chance they would peck at us looking for food since everyone feeds the Emu’s hot dog buns.
It was getting really hot outside and we were feeling a little tired so we were going to head back to the car. As we were walking back, we forgot about the baby animals and the petting zoos. So we hung a right and went to check out the baby animals.
The lady that was sitting in there when we pulled up wasn’t there anymore and the lady from the photo booth was. There was a picnic table with some, surprise, hot dog buns with a Pet Pack sitting next to her. On the ground under the tree there was some tiger cubs playing in the little water trough or sleeping. One cub was in a lawn chair sleeping away. On the table in the pet pack in the 95-degree heat was a 6-day-old cougar cub. So cute and small, but it made me really worried that he was out here and away from its mom and in the public already. He was so hot and panting, it broke my heart. The lady said that the mom, one of the cougars at the zoo, had two cubs and kicked this one out. Well I guess that’s understandable but shouldn’t it be someplace quiet? Away from kids.
There were a couple of kids, 5 and 6 year olds, trying to pick one of the babies up and the tiger hollered. The lady was like ‘No they don’t like to be picked up. But if you hold one had under there rump and the other hand for their paws they’ll sometimes let you hold them that way. They want something secured so they’re not dropped. They’ve been dropped a lot.’ Okay, now that’s just not cool. They’ve been dropped a lot? What does that mean? That’s wrong, they shouldn’t even be in the position to be dropped. I felt so sorry for these babies that were outside all day, petted, stepped on, yes stepped on I scolded a little boy that was trying to step on one of them, looked at, and poked and they’re not even a year old. The youngest was the 6-day-old cougar the oldest was, Sammy, a 5-month-old Tiger.
I didn’t want to leave them there but my battery on my video camera was going dead and I had tons more to video tape. So we headed over to the petting zoo where the kangaroos are. The other petting zoo had some goats in it and didn’t seem all that interesting and seemed pretty well taken care of. Of course goats are goats and don’t need a whole lot of tending. It’s a pretty big enclosure with grass and trees and some hay. Baby goats are really cute when they are running, they jump around and play no wonder they’re called kids.
There are two gates to go through to get to the Red Kangaroo petting zoo. Once inside there are the normal chickens that are always running around and near the end of the enclosure are the Kangaroos lying in the cool shade and eating some corn I guess because there are husks everywhere. They’re so calm that you can reach out and touch them. They’re really soft and different then what I thought they would be. There are about 7 or so males and females together. Which of course makes for families. No babies today, at least not that I could see, they could have a jellybean Joey though. Last year there were two moms that had Joeys still in pouch. I have seen stories of some aggressive kangaroos and since we didn’t have any food we decided to leave them at peace and go through the drive thru part of the zoo. It’s really hot by now.
We get into the car and turn the air conditioning on because we are roasting! We go across the cattle guard and into the Wild-Wilderness. Just kidding. It’s really not that wild. My video camera’s battery was dying so I didn’t get whole lot taped here. The deer, antelope, bison, cows, emu, and wildebeest roam free. And let me tell you they are numerous! I think I saw one cow tagged for identification and that was it. So who knows how many they have. The leopards, cougars, tigers, and lions are in cages. The tigers and lions have large enclosures with platforms for them to climb and lay on. But the smaller cats have smaller cages and they’re real short not tall like the tiger and lion’s cages are. They have dirt floors, no grass, a barrel, and a platform. Most of them were sitting out on their platforms trying to keep cool but are still panting really hard.
The lions and tigers have enough room for there groups. I assume they separate males and females. They look content high up on the tall platform. But several of the tigers on the ground were searching for a place to cool off. A couple were lying in their water troughs and there were a couple hoses dripping water and they were standing under that. Only one of the tiger’s cages had a small pond in it. The water was filthy though, green and mucky. One was actually standing in it. I assume he liked it anyway though.
The bears were in the same type of enclosure as the tigers and lions, a large and tall chain link fence. The bears were hot too. One was lying on the ground obviously sleeping, but he had dug out a hole to where it looked like he could slip out and probably be free. That’s a little scary. I can’t imagine having a bear walk up beside my car! The monkeys were enough. There were monkeys out in the open as well. Up in the trees, sitting on peoples cars, running across the road. It was pretty interesting.
The property that you drive through is very scenic. There is a long creek bed, dry now in the summer, a huge pond out in the open, wooded areas where the deer like to get out of the heat. There was an Alligator pond as well. I was disappointed because I didn’t see any this time. He was probably trying to get cool as well. They have a Hippopotamus too. The little print out that you get at the beginning of all the animals says they have two Hippos. A pygmy hippo and a Nile River Hippo. I didn’t see either one this time but the previous week we saw one. I assume it was the Nile River because his head was huge! I don’t know much about them so I don’t know if they can survive freezing temperatures. It gets pretty cold in Arkansas. The Rhinoceros is in the same enclosure as the hippo. He’s massive too. And when we saw him he was happily munching away on some hay.
Through the rest of the drive though you can see some more leopards and monkeys in small cages. It would be nice if they could use all the open space they have to make better exhibits for the animals that they have in these smaller cages. Several spots there are big pieces of metal, junk buildings around, and unkempt areas. It’s just not very pleasant.
As you exit the drive-thru there are tons of little prairie dogs popping their heads in and out, digging around, and smelling the air. They have populated like something else and they are everywhere. I don’t know how or if they keep them controlled. Just across from the prairie dog exhibit is a pen with a Cassowary in it. Now I have heard these things are pretty aggressive and decided not to take a chance with it and go ahead and leave.
So we were done! We had visited the whole zoo in about 21/2 hours. The baby tigers were still outside and so were the camels. So that was a little sad. All in all I was content with the stuff I discovered and still felt that something needs to be done.
Although direct physical abuse is not noticed, I believe the psychological well being of the animals is what is in dire need of help. I base this assumption under good reason. There is a drastic difference in the care of animals between the Safari in Gentry and other zoos. The whole time I was at the zoo I only saw two keepers. More is needed to be able to care for the different animals at the zoo. All the animals need to be watched consistently to make sure there are no harm to people or the animals and to make sure there are no behavioral changes. THIS IS TO KEEP ALL ANIMALS HEALTHY! Isn’t that what a zoo is for? To educate people? They have to be healthy to be able to do that.
Everything there needs to be helped and there is so much that can be done! I think with a little help from people who are just as compassionate as I am, that the job will get done. Thanks for listening to my story.
