Indoor zoo to open in Bucks County

"Jungle" Joe Fortunato has been taking baby steps toward opening his own zoo since he was bitten by a garter snake in the fourth grade.

It hurt, but Fortunato couldn't stop asking questions about the snake.

The fascination led to pets - lots of them. The first was Moose, the hermit crab. Since then, Fortunato has worked at a pet store, as a police officer, and most recently as a wildlife educator with a traveling animal entourage.

That touring exhibit now has its own home. In a year when the Philadelphia Zoo - the nation's oldest - is celebrating its 150th anniversary, Fortunato is opening a zoo one county away.

On Friday, Fortunato will host the grand opening of what he calls the Bucks County Zoo and Animal Junction. It is the latest incarnation of Fortunato's wildlife education enterprise, and an interim step to what he hopes will become a public zoo in a county without one.

"I think it's important because our message is conservation," said Fortunato, 42. "If people continue to destroy the habitats where these animals come from, they become threatened, then extinct, and once they're gone, they're gone."

Fortunato's animal planet is a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in a Warwick Township industrial park that he revamped into a tidy, indoor habitat for his 80 animals. There are a porcupine, an aardvark, a kinkajou, snakes, a macaw, a wallaby, hissing cockroaches, and kookaburra birds whose piercing howls evoke the jungle.

The animals are in tall cages surrounded by toys, feeders, hanging bars, plants, temperature gauges, humidifiers, and heat lamps. They are cared for by Fortunato, student volunteers from Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, and two veterinarians.

The establishment is the first "zoo" in the county since the 1940s and '50s, say representatives of the Bucks County Historical Society and the Doylestown Historical Society.

In the '30s and '40s, there was a zoo near Langhorne, but "it wasn't much of a zoo," said Kenyon Brown, a volunteer with the Bucks County Historical Society.

There was also a zoo in Buckingham until the 1950s, said Judge Edmund Ludwig, president of the Doylestown Historical Society. Ludwig, a judge in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, called it a "sort-of zoo" in a private home.

"In fact, it wound up in court because the man had a python in his house," Ludwig said. "He fed it a whole chicken every day. A zoning complaint was filed."

But back then, when teachers took their students to a zoo, they visited the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Ludwig said.

Fortunato hopes his new venture will give Bucks students a taste of the wild in their own backyard.

For years, Fortunato has followed the work of Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, and Clyde Peeling, founder of Clyde Peeling's Reptiland in Allenwood, Pa., with an eye toward copying their formula.

Hanna was impressed enough with Fortunato's efforts to begin working with him. Fortunato often supplies the animals for Hanna's in-person and television appearances. They worked together recently for a Hanna guest spot on The Late Show With David Letterman.

"He's got the licenses and loves the animals, and those are the only type of people I work with," Hanna said.

Hanna and Peeling are scheduled to join Fortunato for the grand opening Friday. Peeling's 10-acre reptile habitat is a model for what Fortunato would like to establish.

But Fortunato's ultimate dream is bigger - 50 acres. Fortunato, who is licensed by the state and federal government to run a small zoo, is seeking nonprofit status and accreditation from the Zoological Association of America.

"My advice is don't try to be another Philadelphia Zoo," Peeling said. "Keep it small. Do what you do as well as you can possibly do it."

Fortunato moved into the Warwick facility last year. Before that, Fortunato kept some of his menagerie at his home in Churchville. He transported his animals in a van to wildlife shows at schools, community fairs, and birthday parties.

Fortunato chose wildlife education after he was forced to give up his job as a Falls Township police officer because of a back injury.

"I thought: What am I going to do with my life?" Fortunato said. "Maybe I could do something with animals."

Fortunato had experience as an animal breeder. He began getting the permits, finding animals (some were donated by local humane societies), networking with zoological groups at conferences and seminars, learning about regulations, and soliciting advice from experts such as Hanna and Peeling.

Still, the 50-acre dream zoo is a long way away.

He'll need support from the community, nearby zoological parks, local legislators, and conservation activists, Hanna said, "and education must be the No. 1 priority."

Bucks County Zoo and Animal Junction hours are by appointment only. Tickets for the grand opening Friday cost $65, or two for $100. For more information, call 215-394-5873.

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