Cape May County zoo was just named New Jersey’s best

Reader's Digest ranked the best zoo in every state. When you live in New Jersey, you know instantly the pickings will be slim. With the Bronx Zoo in NYC to our east and Philadelphia Zoo to our west, we're not going to be a zoo powerhouse. But there is the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, or the Bergen County Zoological Park in Paramus. There's the Cohanzick Zoo in Bridgeton, or Space Farms Zoo & Museum in Wantage. Many stories of abandoned exotic animals or injured animals end with the animal being brought to the Popcorn Park Zoo in Forked River.

But none of these made the cut. Reader's Digest named the Cape May County Zoo as New Jersey's best.

The Cape May County Zoo sits on over 80 acres at the southern end of the Parkway in Cape May Court House, NJ. It's open every single day except for Christmas and is home to well over 500 animals from giraffes to otters, snow leopards to the endangered red panda and many others. You can tour the reptile and amphibian house, chill with primates, and see lions, bears, camels and zebras. Here's a link to their website if you've never been.

Speaking of which, I never have. Even the year I spent living in Ocean City for some reason I never got my butt down to the Cape May County Zoo. I would have guessed Turtle Back Zoo would have taken the honors. Shows what I know. Then again I was a fan of arguably Jersey's most politically incorrect zoo of all time, the Terry Lou Zoo in Scotch Plains. It's been gone for years, but in it's day it was one of those old school zoos where the animals were kept in cages with cement floors and not in natural habitats. Animal rights groups complained about that zoo all the time. They were right of course, but I was just a kid and didn't know any better.

Congrats to the Cape May County Zoo!

More from New Jersey 101.5