East Texas Zoo & Gator Park — Attraction in Canton

I highly suggest NOT coming here. My family and I came for a birthday and had a very poor experience. A lot of sad enclosures with bored animals who see a human as an infinite source of carrots. The grounds are full of feces from multiple species. When I saw a Hyena in a shed with no stimulation or water, I was very upset. The company has not been professional with any communication I have had with them. Here's what happened:

This was our first time at the zoo. We made that clear when purchasing our tickets at the front. We paid for the Zoo Bundle ($50 each) which is advertised as the best value. I am a public servant and my Wife is a teacher, and no one offered us the 10% discount advertised on the website. We were quickly charged $100 for 2 adults by someone who was uninterested in helping us. We were handed 2 cups of carrots, and left alone without any direction. The woman who was so efficient at taking our money was not interested in welcoming us or providing any direction for the grounds or experiences offered.

The bundle we purchased offered us an animal encounter. We chose the lemurs. That was the first thing we did upon admittance. Our encounter lasted for no longer than 2 minutes before a staff member came to the enclosure to tell our guide to either "do a different encounter that just walked in or watch the front". Our guide told the other staff member he would rather "watch the front" and our encounter ended. On the website, they advertise a 15 minute encounter. We did not receive that. It was rushed, uninformative, and we did not understand what we were being charged for. We simply walked in, feed each lemur 2 carrots, and walked right out.

Afterwards, we were left to our own devices. No one came to show us where the baby room was, which is an additional part of the bundle we paid for. We never got the opportunity to experience that. We tried our best to enjoy the zoo, but we simply found ourselves walking to each enclosure to meet an over habituated animal begging for a carrot from our apparently $70 feed cups (an airline coffee cup of carrots).

When it was clear that we were ripped off, we began to leave. On our way out of the door to the parking lot, we ran into a staff member in the middle of a phone conversation saying it was time for him to "feed a family to the hyena". This solidified to us that the advertised "Infinite passion for animal welfare" was a ruse to sell $50 tickets.

The website advertises "an unforgettable journey through our zoo, where you'll get to interact with our rare and exotic animals in a way you've never experienced before.". This is simply not true, and we did not see what we were charged $100 for. I called staff after leaving to speak to someone about our experience. I spoke to a gentleman who wrote down my name and phone number, and told me that management would reach out to me via text in 20 minutes. I never heard back. I reached out through email later. No response. When I have tried calling back for an update during their open hours, I am left with the "we're closed" message. This East Texas backyard with African wildlife is here to...

Went there a year ago with 3 grandkids and although pricey, was so much fun. Let us hold snakes, a baby alligator, and some other animals. The highlight was paying extra for the baby room. We were in there with 5-6 baby monkeys, they were climbing around on us, letting us hold and pet them, etc. grands still talk about it! Went today with another grandchild. $146 got the three of us in, a cup of carrots each, a turn in the baby room, and our choice of one of 3 encounters - 1 otter, 3 lemurs, or 3 baby monkeys who were very young and seemed a little offstandish. We decided on the lemurs because according to the guide, they “will play with you, let you hold them and are very sociable”. The guide took us in to the caged area, and another guide followed right behind and picked up the only lemur who seemed willing to be held, and left with it. Turns out, the other two were only interested in eating carrots that they would quickly take from us and run off to eat it. They wanted nothing to do with being held. We did manage to get a few good pictures of us handing the carrots to the lemurs. I mentioned that they took the social lemur off and the guide said, well maybe I can get you over to do the encounter with the baby monkeys then. When we had 5 minutes left on our time, the other guide brought the sociable lemur back and suddenly the other two lemurs relaxed a little bit and were not quite as skittish. The social lemur actually laid down on the swing next to our grandson and we got a few good pictures. Of course our time was up and so we had to leave and nothing else was ever mentioned about the monkeys because I guess our guide figured the 3 minutes with the sociable monkey was enough. Oh, well, we went and got in line for the baby room. We knew going in that there were 2 armadillos, 1 baby goat, 1 smallish type of deer, a ferret, and another animal that I didn’t catch the name of but was related to the kangaroo. This encounter was fairly enjoyable, although the only one interested in really being messed with was the ferret. But it was still a decent encounter. Bottom line - toddlers get in free, and older children are fairly reasonably priced, so if you want to bring your little ones out for a nice outing on a nice day, it’s worth it. Just be prepared to pay extra for a cup of carrots and anything else you want to do. Oh, and they had two food trucks - 1 with different types of fruit and juices and lemonade - $8 per drink; and they had a pretzel truck with $8 - $10 pretzels depending upon what you want on it. Comes with one small sauce, if you want another sauce it’s $1 extra. Will probably not go again since I kinda...

Site seeing and all the exotic animal they have, the animals were content in there spaces at least the ones we did see. Love the gators, took a few more pics this visit.. the only bad thing is I am upset that George isn't where he can interact with people anymore I loved how he was holding people's hands through the cage on the back patio and giving small kisses, it was a fun experience before getting to interact with a lemur when it was my first visit now you can't tell who George is anymore 😢. Our earlier morning visit wasn't like the evening visits though cause not all the animals are out where people can see them, and the peacocks were out and basically in front of the entrance door. I didn't get to see any of the exotic birds and alot of places in the park were empty so the new experience I wanted my boyfriend to have was kind of a let down, the last time I was there they had lizards, snakes and a ant eater but they were not present this round.. I'm wondering if the park is remodeling or are y'all short these animals this year?? I did ask about the bears cause we didn't get to see them either and the lady on duty said they sent them away for a bit for a breeding perpose.. and the lady up front could have been a little more friendlier to us coming in to the park.. the elder man is my favorite cause he took pride in the animals there and wanted people to know about them.. it'll be some time before I'll be able to stop by again to see these lovely animals I can only hope I'll get to see everyone like my...