Greene County, NY - Catskill Game Farm Closing Down

Greene County, NY - The Catskill Game Farm, a combination zoo and hands-on animal farm in Greene County, will close for good in the fall, bringing a 73-year tradition to an end.
Owner Kathie Schultz said the Catskill area simply doesn't have the drawing power it once enjoyed and young people don't enjoy visiting a farm as much as children of previous decades.

But the straw that broke the camel's back, Schultz said, was a new state regulation that forced her to shut down a water play area called a "splash pad." Schultz said the state decision was based on problems with a splash
pad in a western New York park, but she insists hers was up to code and functioning properly.

"It's not fair to the rest of us who do it properly," she said. "After I put all that money into that, now I have to close it."

The Catskill Came Farm will close on Oct. 9.

Schultz's father, Roland Lindemann, founded the Catskill Game Farm in 1933 and grew it into a full-fledged zoo that included areas where visitors could feed and have personal contact with animals.