“Pat’s vision and perseverance are what created the Gulf Breeze Zoo. The moral to this story is, when someone asks you to come out and play – think about it,” Potter said with laughter. With the passage of time and the vision of one individual and people willing to go along with it for whatever reason, we have a nice zoo. “He worked hard to do this and it took a lot out of both Donna and Pat to build this zoo, and he gave up a lot of his life to do so. In recent history, Quinn, 76, has survived cancer and heart surgery. Quinn’s family also suffered through a terrorist bombing and spent months in the hospital. Potter recounted the time that Quinn got malaria and other diseases while bringing animals back to Lion Country Safari, and was even washed overboard during a storm near Cape Horn. Quinn’s trips to Africa were not always a walk in the park. Quinn also facilitated an exchange for a Navarre teenager to go to Africa and an African teenager to come to Navarre through the Navarre Rotary Club. There are also cows for milk where there weren’t before. Because of Quinn’s concern for the people of Africa, there are now water wells in villages where it used to take hours to go retrieve water.

While on safari, Quinn would learn of needs there, and bring them back to the Navarre Rotary Club, where he was the chair of International Service. Quinn began taking groups of people on Safari when he worked for Lion Country Safari, and to date has led 70 safaris to Africa. Colossus later ended up at the Cincinnati Zoo’s breeding program and died in 2006 at the age of 40 without ever successfully propagating. The Gulf Breeze Zoo purchased Colossus in 1986 for $37,500 after Benson’s Animal Park shut down. Benson’s Animal Park was also the first zoological home to Colossus, the gorilla. “Many of my closest friendships that I still have today started at that zoo,” Mogensen said. Quinn gave Mogensen a job in 1980 as a zookeeper at Benson’s Animal Park, which is where Mogensen met his wife, Janet. The current owner of the Gulf Breeze Zoo is a former co-worker of Quinn’s. That is where Quinn’s path crossed with Mogensen and Colossus, the gorilla. Quinn left Pensacola several times to work at other zoological parks including two parks in California, the San Francisco Zoo (where he met his wife, Donna), Lion Country Safari, and Benson Animal Farm in New Hampshire. “Pat would come to the door and ask Nell if Jimmy can come out to play and then we would take off and chase armadillos across the dunes of Perdido Key,” said Potter. They shared many meals together, and that is when Potter began helping Quinn with his first two “menageries” near Pensacola. “I always found myself back at the Potter house,” Quinn said. The friendship began when Quinn sold insurance to the family. Jim Potter, and his wife, Nell, have known Quinn for more than 50 years.

“I know of no one else that has done the same thing - in the same area after failing twice before and expecting different results the third time around and succeeding.

With hurricanes, economic chaos and the general ebbs and flows of business, it is truly spectacular,” said Eric Mogensen, the owner and corporate director of the Gulf Breeze Zoo. “Taking a raw piece of Florida scrubland and making it a Zoo is impressive, but even more impressive is making that Zoo succeed for over 30 years. Quinn’s pure will and determination were noticed by several friends who became his financial backers. “People donated pennies and nickels to help start a zoo, and that is how it all began,” added Quinn. Quinn would take his “menagerie,” which included a donkey and a chimpanzee, to area schools. “I drove around in a ’47 Plymouth that I took the back seat out of and put a jackass in the back seat with his tail hanging out one end of the car and his head out the other side.” Quinn recounted. Quinn’s determination to bring a zoological park to the Pensacola area began in 1960 and was an uphill battle.

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