Turtle Back Zoo getting $5M reptile house
Associated Press
Posted on Wed, Jan. 12, 2005
Turtle Back Zoo getting $5M reptile house
Associated Press
WEST ORANGE, N.J. - A popular Essex County zoo is getting a $5 million reptile house and education center that will feature rare Komodo dragons, Burmese pythons and other exotic animals.
The new 11,000-square-foot exhibit at Turtle Back Zoo is expected to open in early 2006.
The zoo draws between 140,000 and 160,000 guests a year, but its facilities are outdated and many of its exhibits house animals such as wolves and geese. Because the zoo's current exhibits are all outdoors, Turtle Back virtually shuts down during the winter months, opening only on weekends. As a result, it has been losing money for years.
Zoo Director Jeremy Goodman and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo said they hope the reptile house - along with a new black bear exhibit opening in May - will allow Turtle Back to stay open seven days a week all year long and boost attendance enough to turn a profit.
"This is a major project that needs to be done to make this a 12-month zoo," DiVincenzo said. "There's no reptile center that's going to compare to this one here."
The new building is to be divided into the reptile house, classrooms and a new gift shop. Inside the reptile house will be three main exhibits featuring a pair of 20-foot-long Burmese pythons, two Komodo dragons and a South American habitat with poisonous dart frogs, tree sloths and toucans. Twenty smaller exhibits will display lizards, chameleons, scorpions, Goliath spiders and 3-foot-long hellbender salamanders.
Goodman said the endangered Komodo dragons, which can grow to between 7 and 10 feet long, will be the main draw.
"We're going to be the only zoo in the Northeast with those animals," he said.
About half the cost will come from state grants already awarded to the county. An additional $1.5 million will come from county funds allocated for the project last year. DiVincenzo said he plans to apply for the remainder through a state grant program.
The majority of the new animals are to be donated from other zoos.
