Cape May County Zoo

The Zoo is free to the public, and is the largest in southern New Jersey. They were blessed with the birth of two snow leopard cubs back in February, but yesterday the hot weather kept them in their shady retreat, along with the other big cats. It's not a bad zoo, especially for the price, but I'd have to say it's not photography-friendly. Most of the cage wire is just at the distance to make shooting past it difficult - it ranged from two to four or so feet from the edge of the walkway, so you could rarely, if ever, get the camera close enough to shoot 'past' the wire. The toucan shot is about the best I got from all the 'caged' exhibits. The open areas are better, but overall it wasn't as good as I'd hoped.

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I am sorry to hear about the shooting conditions. I just recently heard about the snow leopard kittens and was planning to make a visit. Probably after I lost most of my money in AC and a free Zoo would fit the bill.

Snow leopards are my absolute fav so Im hoping to get to the CMZ soon. Im sad to hear about the heat causing them to hide. Its a 3 hour drive for me, so Im hoping they are out when I get there. Dunno when Ill go though. The Central Park zoo also has a big snow leopard exhibit that I want to see. Then theres the snow leopards at the Bronx zoo which are behind wire and shaded, so its hard to photograph them. The Philly zoo had the best conditions to photograph snow leopards, when they would put them in Big Cat Falls where the exhibit is behind glass. Unfortunately, they got a new female amur leopard a few months ago(she is beautiful) and she took the spot and the snow leopard got bumped over to the far end of the zoo by the cheetahs. Sad times for me!

Besides the snow leopard situation in our area. I think your third shot works the best as it had the best focusing. A lot of the time at zoos, since its an unnatural environment, you have to work hard to find angles where the subject looks more natural. Trying to avoid the man made elements of the exhibit really helps put the focus on the animal. So I def hear you when you talk about the wire.