Jungle Island — Miami, Florida

Jungle Island is a zoological park located at 1111 Parrot Jungle Trail, Miami, FL 33132, on Watson Island — a man-made island connected to the mainland via the MacArthur Causeway, positioned between downtown Miami and Miami Beach. Jungle Island's official history describes the park as having been established in 1936, making it one of Miami's oldest continuously operating visitor attractions. The park's official website characterizes it as an intimate zoological park offering animal encounters in a setting built upon more than 80 years of continuous operation. As of November 2024, following a voter-approved charter amendment, the park's long-term future on Watson Island is under active negotiation between the City of Miami and developer joint venture Ecoresiliency Miami.

Parrot Jungle — the attraction that would eventually become Jungle Island — was founded in 1936 by Francis Franz Scherr and Louise Scherr, according to the park's published history. The original site was in Pinecrest, a community southwest of Miami proper, where the attraction operated for more than six decades as one of South Florida's signature zoological and botanical destinations. The founding era placed the park in the company of Depression-era roadside attractions that combined natural spectacle with trained-animal performances, drawing visitors drawn by the novelty of free-roaming tropical birds in a subtropical garden setting.

Over the decades, the Pinecrest location established the institutional identity that would persist through later relocations and rebranding: a park centered on animal encounter experiences, educational programming, and lush landscaping characteristic of South Florida's subtropical environment. The park's own published history describes it as having built upon a rich tradition spanning more than 80 years, a timeline that traces directly from the Scherrs' 1936 founding through the present day.

In 2003, the attraction relocated from its original Pinecrest site to Watson Island, a man-made island in Biscayne Bay positioned along the MacArthur Causeway corridor between downtown Miami and Miami Beach. The move was reported by WLRN public radio, which also documented the subsequent rebranding of the attraction from Parrot Jungle to Jungle Island in 2007. The new name reflected a broader expansion of the park's animal programming beyond its original parrot-centric identity.

At its Watson Island location, Jungle Island developed an animal exhibit roster that, as documented on the park's official website, came to include lemurs, capybaras, and sloths alongside primate exhibits featuring twin orangutans born at the park. Among the park's most prominently documented residents is a liger named Hercules, which the park's official website describes as holding the Guinness World Record for the largest living feline. The Watson Island site brought the park into proximity with other civic assets on the island, including Miami Children's Museum and the Ichimura Miami Japanese Garden, and positioned it directly adjacent to Biscayne Bay with views toward downtown Miami and the Port of Miami.

The park operated on land leased from the City of Miami under an agreement that became the subject of redevelopment negotiations beginning in 2024. WLRN reported in July 2024 that ESJ Capital Partners had been leasing the Watson Island land from the city, and that the Miami City Commission was advancing a proposal involving the sale of approximately 5.4 acres to Ecoresiliency Miami — a joint venture formed by ESJ Capital and Terra Group — for mixed-use redevelopment.

On November 5, 2024, Miami voters approved a charter amendment authorizing the redevelopment of the Jungle Island site on the north side of Watson Island. The Real Deal reported that the first charter amendment passed with nearly 62 percent voter approval. The approved plan, advanced by the Ecoresiliency Miami joint venture between ESJ Capital and Terra Group, contemplated replacing the existing zoological park with luxury condominium towers and a publicly accessible waterfront park. Bisnow described the total Watson Island development as a $2 billion project, with the north-side Jungle Island parcel valued at $135 million for the 5.4-acre transfer.

Following the referendum, the closure timeline for the park remained unsettled. WPLG Local 10 reported in November 2024 that the timeframe for closing was still in flux, and that Commissioner Damian Pardo had addressed the disposition of the park's animals to sanctuaries. The same report noted that the proposed public park component was estimated to cost $37 million to develop across 13 acres, with annual payments of $2 million included in the public-benefit terms.

ESJ Capital Partners had also proposed an alternative attraction under the name Jungle Island: Miami's Adventure Oasis, a $300 million eco-adventure park concept. Citybiz documented that the proposal included an aerial adventure course, trampoline park, and interactive animal tours — programming intended to carry forward an outdoor and animal-encounter mission on the same island. The redevelopment process continued to advance through 2025: The Real Deal reported in July 2025 that after six deferrals, the Miami City Commission voted to move forward with allocating funds from the Watson Island land sale, with an assessed purchase price of $160 million established for the transaction.

Jungle Island's nearly nine-decade presence in Miami — first in Pinecrest and then on Watson Island — represents one of the longer institutional continuities in the city's built civic landscape. Founded by Francis and Louise Scherr in 1936, the attraction predates many of Miami's most recognized landmarks and operated continuously through the city's mid-century growth, the waves of post-1959 immigration that transformed Miami's demographic character, and the speculative real-estate cycles that have repeatedly reshaped the urban waterfront.

The park's Watson Island location gave it a position of particular civic visibility: accessible via the MacArthur Causeway, the site sat on publicly owned land leased to a private operator, a governance structure that made the park's future directly subject to municipal decision-making and, ultimately, direct democratic referendum. The November 2024 vote — in which Miami residents weighed the continuation of a publicly accessible zoological park against a mixed-use redevelopment promising luxury housing, public park acreage, and substantial city revenues — illustrated the persistent tension in Miami's waterfront governance between public recreational use and private development value.

As of the July 2025 City Commission vote documented by The Real Deal, the redevelopment process was advancing through its negotiation and fund-allocation phases, with the existing park continuing to operate under its lease terms while the transition framework was finalized between the City of Miami and Ecoresiliency Miami.