Naples Zoo, Zoo in Naples, Florida, US

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is a 43-acre zoo and botanical garden in Naples, Florida, with a one-mile loop path through a tropical garden first planted in 1919. The route passes alligator and bear habitats, a lake with primate islands, and a giraffe feeding area where visitors can hand-feed reticulated giraffes.

Botanist Henry Nehrling bought the land in 1919 to shelter his plant collection after a 1917 freeze damaged his original central Florida garden. After his death in 1929 the grounds were neglected for over two decades until Julius Fleischmann Jr. reopened them as Caribbean Gardens in 1954. In 1969 Larry and Jane Tetzlaff, known as Jungle Larry and Safari Jane, added their exotic animals, and the site became a zoo.

The name Caribbean Gardens survives from Julius Fleischmann's 1954 opening, and the zoo keeps the botanical collection Henry Nehrling began in 1919. The Primate Expedition Cruise, a 15- to 20-minute catamaran circuit of Lake Victoria, lets visitors watch lemurs, spider monkeys, gibbons and colobuses on islands. The fosa is labelled with a single s to distinguish it from the Malagasy civet Fossa fossana.

Wear comfortable walking shoes since the grounds require walking through different sections. Arriving early helps you see animals more easily and avoid the heat of the day.

The zoo's black bear exhibit is the largest in an accredited zoo east of the Mississippi River, with two separate habitats: one simulating a natural environment and one a back yard, both viewed through glass. The zoo also keeps a breeding pair of mountain bongo, an antelope of the Mount Kenya area with only 75 to 80 left in the wild.