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You can buy anything on the internet, even a zoo

You can buy anything on the internet, even a zoo

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Baby Giraffe Born At San Francisco Zoo
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Between Craigslist and eBay, there’s no shortage of bizarre purchases you can make online. For the obsessive celebrity lover, the internet has sales on hair or chewed gum. Maybe you’d enjoy a used pirate ship; it’s for sale by the "ownarr?” Or perhaps you’re on the market for a human-sized hamster wheel.

Of course, none of those options compare to a zoo. Yes, today you can buy your very own zoo.

The Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge Zoological Park, a Florida-based zoo, is up for grabs on Craigslist. For a slick $350,000, you could be the owner of a 10-acre park with a gift shop, a lot of barns and refrigerators, and a wide variety of animals, from lions, tigers, and bears to bob cats and baboons. The zoo already has a professional staff in place, so you won’t even have to learn how to clean the cages.

President and Chairman of the Board of Directors for ECWR Bill Andersen told The Verge that it’s looking for a buyer who is interested in maintaining and growing the facility. In other words, just having the money won’t cut it. "We're looking for somebody who shares our passion for the welfare of the animals at the zoo,” he says. “We want somebody with the financial means to be able to keep the zoo on the upward trend. Not only in terms of animal healthcare, veterinarian care, but continual upgrade of habitats.”

Andersen says the ECWR acquired the zoo in 2013, after the state approached the organization. The zoo was previously privately owned as a kind of “roadside attraction,” he says, but there was concern for the furry residents. Over the last few years, the non-profit has focused on rehabilitating the animals.

"Now that we have the creatures happy and healthy, it's time for us to get back to our primary mission, which is the rehabilitation of our natural fauna here in the area,” he says. “We've done the rescue and rehabilitation part, and now we think it's time to release it to somebody whose primary focus is the zoo.”

Sure, you could buy a lot of chewed celebrity gum with $350,000, but who can put a price on living our your weirdest Matt Damon fantasy?