ZooAmerica 2012 Trip Report and Review

While visiting Hershey world (as some people like to call it) this past Memorial Day Weekend I had the opportunity to visit Hershey Zoo America, a North American Wildlife Park. This quaint little zoo is located in Hershey, Pa. right next door to HersheyPark amusement park. Zoo America pa  (also spelled Zooamerica) is home to animals found in North America, such as the river otter, bobcat, American alligator, etc. Visiting ZooAmerica is a great way to take a break from the vomit inducing rides and long hot lines at HersheyPark. Admission to the zoo is free with your ticket to HersheyPark or you can buy admission to the zoo separately. The park has many trees and is very well shaded throughout.

The mountain lions at the Hershey zoo where extremely active, more so than I have seen them at any other zoo in the country. In fact, one of the cats was being very vocal as well – something I had never heard before! Timber wolves and black bear are the other large mammals on display. One of the best exhibits at Hershey Park Zoo America is the prairie dog enclosure. The cute critters were very active and the exhibit allowed you to get pretty close to them too.

Zoo America Hershey Pa gets a lot of flak for having small and outdated enclosures, which I agree with, but I would rather the animals be kept there than at some exotic animal farm in Zanesville, Ohio or at the even more pathetic cages at Lagoon Park. On a sad note, this is the same Pennsylvania zoo where the two bison had to be euthanized due to rapidly rising flood waters back in September of 2011. As far as I could tell, the former bison exhibit sits on the bank of the creek and remains empty to this day.

Overall, ZooAmerica, the Hershey Pa zoo, is a nice little zoo and is a great place to visit if you’re at HersheyPark but I otherwise wouldn’t go too far out of my way to visit. I would rather go to the nearby ElkCountry to see wild herds of elk rather then see the three that ZooAmerica has in their little pen – but that’s just my opinion.

Pictured below is the ZooAmerica 2012 park map.