NOVA Wild

About NOVA Wild

NOVA Wild is a 30-acre zoo in Reston, Virginia, built around two ways of seeing its animals: a self-drive-through safari featuring zebras, bison, and llamas, and a walking tour past cheetahs, capybaras, kangaroos, sloths, camel rides, and a bird aviary. The zoo lists more than 50 species in its collection, with at least 22 named on its website, and it is not currently accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The property has operated as an animal park under several names since the 1970s, and its current identity dates to December 2022, when local resident Tara Campbell Lussier purchased the land and reopened it as NOVA Wild in the spring of 2023, with a stated focus on animal welfare, education, and conservation.

History

The site's animal-park history goes back to 1975, when local developer Mack Slye "Jack" Crippen Jr. opened the Pet-A-Pet Farm on a 60-acre parcel he owned near Lake Fairfax Park. Crippen, a collector of exotic animals, had gotten many of them from the closing of ABC's Largo Wildlife Preserve in Prince George's County, Maryland. After losing nearly $200,000 running Pet-A-Pet, Crippen closed it in 1978 and sold or gave away most of its roughly 500 animals; the Zoological Consortium, a management group brought in to help disperse the collection, later helped an employee named Mark Smith find backing from Loudoun businessman Robert D. Johnson to reopen the park. It reopened as Pet Farm Park in spring 1980, and was renamed Reston Animal Park in 1993. In 1994, the Johnsons and Crippen settled a lawsuit over the property's rental terms, allowing the couple to keep renting it — by then reduced to 30 acres — for five more years.

When the Johnsons' lease with Crippen expired in 1999 without a renewal, they relocated their operation to Loudoun County, eventually renaming it the Leesburg Animal Park in 2001. Back in Reston, Crippen leased the original site to Eric and Janet Mogensen, who reopened it as the Reston Zoo in spring 2000. After Crippen's death in 2006, the Mogensens bought the property from his estate in 2009.

In 2012, the Reston Zoo's director was found guilty of illegally possessing animal anesthesia and of animal cruelty after drowning a wallaby, and was sentenced to 30 days in jail; she pleaded guilty to the charges in January 2013 as part of a plea agreement that barred her from overseeing animal euthanasia going forward. The zoo changed hands again in March 2016, when Vanessa Stoffel and Jacob Roer bought it and renamed it Roer's Zoofari. In March 2021, a fire destroyed one of the property's large two-story barns and killed two giraffes. Tara Campbell Lussier purchased the land in December 2022 and reopened it that spring as NOVA Wild.

Exhibits and habitats

NOVA Wild is organized around two main experiences: a self-drive-through safari section, where visitors see zebras, bison, and llamas from their own vehicle, and a walking tour covering the rest of the collection, including cheetahs, capybaras, kangaroos, sloths, camel rides, and a bird aviary.

Animal highlights

NOVA Wild lists more than 50 species of animals overall, with at least 22 species named on the zoo's website. Named residents include the cheetah, red kangaroo, capybara, Linnaeus's two-toed sloth, ring-tailed lemur and red ruffed lemur, squirrel monkey, white-faced capuchin, American bison, Watusi cattle, zebu, sika deer, fallow deer, emu, and silvery-cheeked hornbill, alongside smaller residents like the pygmy goat, kunekune pig, donkey, and llama.

Planning your visit

The available source material does not include current hours, ticket prices, or parking details for NOVA Wild. Check the zoo's official website before planning a visit.