Kilman Zoo

The Kilman Zoo is a small family owned zoo located in Caledonia, Ontario.  We have been here several times over the year and actually I think I will suggest another trip there tomorrow to the fam!.  The owners of the zoo really love their animals - they have hand fed many of the lions, jaguars and tigers when they were babies.  One of the black jaguars (named Grumpy) was 20 yrs old and Mark, the owner, was telling us that they only live to about 11 yrs old in the wild.  We were lucky enough to run into this owner petting the jaguar at his cage where he reminisced about playing football in the fields with Grumpy in his youth. He got a bit choked up when he told us that he didn't think "old Grump" would make it through the winter - due to the fact that he was really "getting on" in age.  I know there is quite the controversy over zoos in general, and especially the smaller ones, but we personally have never seen anything disturbing at this zoo.  I love the set up of the zoo being that you get so up close to the animals - enough that there are signs everywhere to warn the visitors that the "cats" can spray 15 feet, which would make the visitor the target!