Jungle Habitat

Jungle Habitat (7/12/2010)

I'm not sure I ever visited Jungle Habitat as a kid (my mother says I didn't) but Laura did. Warner Brothers opened the famous car safari in West Milford, New Jersey in 1972 but closed it after the Halloween weekend of 1976 when residents of West Milford narrowly voted down WB's request for expansion of the park. It existed only four years and yet holds a very nostalgic place in the hearts of many New Jerseyans who were kids between those years. It's closing engendered many urban legends about rotting animal carcasses and escaped or abandonded animals. Even since its recent reopening as a hiking and biking area it is not without controversy: not even three weeks ago (June 24, 2010), a local man and his dog were attacked by a bear within the park. Bear traps were set on the path where the incident occurred and eventually the bear was caught and euthanized.

Laura and I took the day off from work today and decided to explore the area. Armed with this map, we had a blast. We first walked from the gate to the huge parking lot south of the airport (visiting a quarry above the airport on the way), then through the tunnels into the petting zoo area where we wandered around for a bit. We next took Safari 1 north to the Tiger Pen where we found a pile of old bones left by the tigers who lived here (there were also bones scattered around the ground between the two wooden structures within the pen). From here we went south outside the fenced area of the park on a trail within Norvin Green (though not blazed) and visited two tanks at Jungle Habitat's southern end before heading back north on a parallel path which passed more cages (both paths are green on the map). Back on Safari 1 we continued all the way north before swinging south, taking one additional inner road before walking back up to the car.

Total distance today was just over 6 miles in about 3.5 hours.

(Click on the thumbnail to bring up a bigger image in a pop-up window)