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The old Catskill Game Farm was once among the nation’s largest private zoos.<\/p>\n
The Old Catskill Game Farm<\/p>\n
CATSKILL\u00a0\u2014 Memories of the Catskill Game Farm tend to carry plenty of nostalgia for locals who visited the family-owned petting zoo during its 73 years in operation. But a new documentary turns a spotlight on a particularly dark corner of the tourist attraction\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAmerican Zoo\u201d had its U.S. premiere on June 4 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Directed by British filmmaker Tim Travers Hawkins, the film uses footage Travers Hawkins discovered in 2022 during a visit to the former zoo to explore its troubled past\u00a0\u2014 including links to a Nazi-era animal-breeding program aimed at reviving extinct animal species.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen I was first looking at the film, I absolutely had no idea it was going to lead me to a Nazi breeding program,\u201d Travers Hawkins, a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker, said in an interview with the Times Union.<\/p>\n
Opened in 1933 by German immigrant Roland Lindemann, the Catskill Game Farm became the nation\u2019s first privately owned zoo in 1958. Over its seven decades of operation, the Game Farm\u2019s menagerie grew to approximately 2,000 animals and 150 species.<\/p>\n
In addition to being a major tourist attraction in the Catskills, the Game Farm had breeding programs to supply animals to other zoos\u00a0\u2014 and, apparently, to bring animals back from extinction.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Through the found footage and numerous interviews with former gamekeepers and descendants, Travers Hawkins was able to piece together the history of the two main families at the core of the operation: the Lindemanns and the Hecks.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n German scientist Heinz Heck Jr. first entered the picture in 1959, according to\u00a0The Overlook<\/a>, which first reported on the film\u2019s premiere. Heinz\u2019s father, Lutz Heck, a scientist and regular visitor to the Game Farm, had worked under and was \u201cbest friends\u201d with Nazi leader Hermann G\u00f6ring, Adolf Hitler\u2019s second in command during World War II, Travers Hawkins said.<\/p>\n After joining the farm\u2019s staff, Heinz began experimenting on animals in an attempt to breed extinct species back into existence, including a type of wild cattle once found in Europe known as an auroch. Heinz\u2019s experiments led to a series of genetic birth defects in many of the zoo\u2019s animals.<\/p>\n Travers Hawkins\u2019 research led him to the archives of the Berlin Zoo and to the home of Heinz\u2019s daughter, Margaret, in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he uncovered records of the experiments. Given the Heck family\u2019s reputation in the zoological world and interviews with gamekeepers from the time, Lindemann most likely knew about the experiments, Travers Hawkins said.<\/p>\n \u201cLindemann was an entrepreneur,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was clearly a man who loved animals, but I think some would question the way he loved animals, especially today.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Catskill Game Farm founder Roland Lindemann is seen at the zoo on Aug. 11, 1980.<\/p>\n Times Union archive<\/p>\n Lindemann\u2019s daughter, Kathie Schulz\u00a0\u2014 who owned the farm from 1989 until its closure in 2006 and was interviewed for the film\u00a0\u2014 said she was not aware of the experiments until after the fact, Travers Hawkins said, adding that she would have been young at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition to the revelations about the breeding experiments, \u201cAmerican Zoo\u201d sheds light on the families who worked at, visited and cherished the Game Farm for generations.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you had worked there a long time\u00a0\u2014 and most of them had\u00a0\u2014 it was kind of a family,\u201d Travers Hawkins said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Although the pay was little, the workers were passionate about their jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you love working with animals, this is a calling in life, and Lindemann made a place to do that,\u201d Travers Hawkins said. \u201cHe made a business that was unique for that area and another lifestyle they wouldn\u2019t have otherwise had.\u201d<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> Items from local theme park empire hit auction block<\/a> | Historic photos of area amusement parks<\/a><\/p>\n The Catskill Game Farm\u2019s decline and rebirth\u00a0<\/p>\n After the game farm closed its doors nearly two decades ago, the animals were auctioned off, including April the Giraffe, who went on to become a YouTube star when the birth of her son was\u00a0livestreamed in 2017 from her final home, Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The property sat vacant for many years before it was purchased by a local couple in 2012. Cathy and Ben Ballone, who grew up in East Durham and New Jersey, respectively, had fond memories of visiting the Game Farm as children.<\/p>\n After extensive renovations, the former giraffe house was transformed into the Long Neck Inn, which opened in 2019. The Ballones also added four Tentrr \u201cglamping\u201d sites to the property, offered self-guided tours, and had dreams of establishing a campground and RV park.<\/p>\n After nine years of owning the property, the Ballones decided to put it up for sale. In late 2020, the Game Farm was sold to a group of investors for $1.9 million, who continue to rent the Long Neck Inn and Tentrr sites.<\/p>\n The Game Farm was listed for sale again in January 2022 for $3.6 million. After a sale to a nonprofit seeking to establish a residential community for adults with autism fell through, the 193 acres were divided up into smaller parcels, which remain on the market except for the Long Neck Inn.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Patrons head to the ticket booth at the Catskill Game Farm in 2006, on the second-to-last day of its existence.<\/p>\n Philip Kamrass\/Times Union archive<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican Zoo\u201d puts a lens on the difficulty of reconciling the zoo\u2019s rich history and pleasant memories for so many visitors with the darker elements of its past that remained largely unknown until recent years. That past also includes questionable treatment\u00a0\u2014 both morally and legally\u00a0\u2014 of the zoo\u2019s animals and their capture by the Lindemann family, as seen in the footage Hawkins recovered from an abandoned gift shop at the former farm.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the way things were done back then,\u201d Travers Hawkins said, adding that the film sheds light on the legacy of colonialism. \u201cThey could just go and essentially raid the wild and take basically what they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n The film is not intended to be an expos\u00e9, Travers Hawkins said, but rather a complex story about the zoo\u2019s history and the different families whose lives had intersected there. While there are no public screenings of \u201cAmerican Zoo\u201d scheduled currently, Travers Hawkins intends to bring the film to a wider audience, including local theaters, soon.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not trying to draw too many moral conclusions,\u201d he said. \u201cI want the audience to do that for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n For Shawn Johnson, general manager of the Old Game Farm\u00a0\u2014 the property\u2019s current name\u00a0\u2014 the film does not alter his fond childhood memories.<\/p>\n \u201cTim did a great job directing it and doing a well-rounded documentary,\u201d said Johnson, who attended the premiere. \u201cI hope this doesn\u2019t mar anybody\u2019s image of (the Game Farm).\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In addition to overnight lodging and glamping, the Old Game Farm is also available for weddings, family reunions and other private events.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of good memories made here still,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The old Catskill Game Farm was once among the nation’s largest private zoos. 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