Shade swamp sanctuary, Farmington ,Ct

The little "zoo" was part of an 800-acre preserve called Shade Swamp Sanctuary, which started out as a wildlife rehabilitation center in the 1930s. Injured animals were cared for and released back into the wild. It housed birds, wolves, bears, and many other animals. Known to many as the “Farmington Zoo, it also featured a breeding program for critters like raccoons and rabbits that were commonly hunted off the busy highway during the Great Depression.
Shade Swamp's reputation as a zoo spread, and soon people were bringing in exotic pets they didn’t want to care for anymore: monkeys, an alligator, and even a baby giraffe from a stranded carnival. The breeding program ended soon after the Depression, and the sanctuary was later abandoned in the 1960s after U.S. Route 84 took most of Route 6's traffic.

[@billthorne]

Whoa! So cool. Where do you find out about this stuff? Always something new. I mean always something old.
You probably know about the coydog breeding facility at UConn.. cages there too.
I see why it was called “shady“. Did you notice the huge white pines? If you did? Did they seem to be in a grid? Sometimes white pines were planted in areas where trees had been blown down, like for instance, by a hurricane. I wonder if that’s part of the history. Thanks very much. Very interesting.