Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo in Alachua County, Florida

Photograph: Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo.jpg by LittleT889 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Alachua County attraction

Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo

Alachua County · North Florida & First Coast

A ten-acre zoo on Santa Fe College's Gainesville campus, holding over 200 animals and training the people who will look after them.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The zoo was founded in 1970 and sits on about ten acres of the college's main campus in northwest Gainesville. It holds more than 200 animals from over 70 species, covering mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects, with lar gibbons, red ruffed lemurs, ocelots and bald eagles among them alongside a good deal of native Florida wildlife. What makes it unusual is who does the work. The zoo exists to run the college's zoo animal technology program, and it is the only college zookeeper training facility of its kind in the United States. Students handle husbandry, nutrition, veterinary support, conservation and the unglamorous sanitation work as part of the course, so the keepers a visitor sees are the ones being taught. The zoo has held accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums since 2000 and is reviewed every five years, which is a demanding standard for a teaching facility. It takes part in Species Survival Plan programs for endangered animals. Visitors can walk it themselves or book a tour led by a student, and there are public events including an Earth Day gathering and a Halloween festival

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official Website ↗

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