| Parrot
Jungle Gardens,
as it was originally called, was opened by Austrian immigrant
Franz Scherr in 1936. The Depression cut short his construction
career and he wound up in Pinecrest, Florida, where he opened a
feed store and kept several live parrots on display. The birds
became a local attraction and Scherr realized that tourists
would pay to see them. According to Grace DuMond, widow of
Joseph DuMond, the founder of then-nearby Monkey Jungle, Scherr
was a pest, always making suggestions to Joe. "'Why don't you do
this and how about trying that?'" she recalled. "Finally, Joe
just told him to go start his own jungle, and he did."
Parrot Jungle Gardens quickly became a Florida
classic. It had a flock of deep-pink Greater
Flamingos (who in the 1980s appeared in the opening credits
of Miami Vice) and a "Parrot Circus," where the birds would pull
chariots and fly a rocket to the moon. The star was Pinky, a
cockatoo that rode a tiny Parrot Jungle bicycle along a high
wire. She was such an icon that we put her on the cover of the
first Roadside America book.
By the turn of the millennium, Pinecrest real
estate prices had gone through the roof, so Parrot Jungle sold
its property and moved to Watson Island in Biscayne Bay, just
offshore from Miami. |
