At Canton Grand Safari, we create meaningful connections between people and animals through guided, hands on experiences in the heart of East Texas. What began as a passion for wildlife has grown into a place where families, friends, and animal lovers can learn, explore, and interact in a safe and welcoming environment. Our animals always come first, and every visit is designed to be memorable, respectful, and enriching for both guests and the animals in our care.
At Canton Grand Safari, we create meaningful connections between people and animals through guided, hands on experiences in the heart of East Texas. What began as a passion for wildlife has grown into a place where families, friends, and animal lovers can learn, explore, and interact in a safe and welcoming environment. Our animals always come first, and every visit is designed to be memorable, respectful, and enriching for both guests and the animals in our care.
MEET OUR TEAM
MEET THE HUMANS
BEHIND THE CHAOS
Somebody has to keep all of this organized.
Or at least attempt to.
The humans behind Canton Grand Safari Adventure didn’t exactly follow the traditional career path into zoo management. Animals were already part of their lives long before the Safari came along.
Then, somewhere along the way, things got a little out of hand.
MONIQUE
CEO
Apparently buying a zoo seemed reasonable.
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animals have always just been part of life.
She’s spent her life raising just about everything — from horses to monkeys — and her passion for animals eventually led her into nonprofit dog rescue.
Around here, there’s a long-running joke that the monkeys were planned. The kids weren’t.
Eventually, rescuing, raising and collecting cool critters apparently wasn’t enough, so Monique did the perfectly reasonable thing:
She bought a zoo.
Canton Grand Safari Adventure became a way to turn a lifelong passion into something she could share with everyone else — giving people the chance to meet, learn about and fall in love with some of the incredible animals she’s spent her life around.
And apparently giving her an excuse to collect a few more along the way.
KEVIN NYE
Operations Manager
Exotic animals are a gateway hobby.
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it started with birds.
His grandmother had an exotic bird refuge, so growing up around parrots and other exotic birds was simply part of life. Eventually, he inherited that passion himself.
For years, animals remained exactly that — a passion, a hobby and a small side business. Josh’s actual career was in construction, where he owned and operated a construction company and built houses.
Then 2020 happened.
Suddenly, during COVID, people were apparently a lot more interested in animals than they were in building houses.
So the side business wasn’t quite so “side” anymore.
One thing led to another, birds turned into all kinds of other cool critters, and roughly 23 years after it all started, Josh somehow ended up helping run a zoo.
So… here we are.
KYLEE
Director of Animal Care & Husbandry
Keeper of the Keepers, Feeder of the Masses & Director of Organized Chaos.
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Kylee is one of the people responsible for making sure the organized chaos stays at least somewhat organized.
As Director of Animal Care & Husbandry, she oversees feeding schedules, coordinates the keeper team and helps make sure a whole lot of mouths get fed and a whole lot of personalities are accounted for every day.
Her own animal obsession started long before she worked here, from performance horses to eventually getting her first monkey.
And, as fate would have it, she bought that monkey from this very zoo — long before we were the people who owned it.
Kylee joined our team about two years ago.
We’ve tried everything, but we just can’t seem to shake her.
She keeps coming back every day. Weird.
These days, she’s gone from caring for her own animals to helping oversee a collection that includes around a hundred monkeys — plus all the human ones she has to deal with along the way.
So yes, technically she’s our Director of Animal Care & Husbandry.
But Keeper of the Keepers, Feeder of the Masses & Director of Organized Chaos is probably a more accurate job description.
Different backgrounds. Different paths. Same problem:
NOBODY HERE KNOWS HOW TO HAVE A NORMAL HOBBY.
And somehow, all of those paths eventually led to Canton Grand Safari Adventure.
The overall goal with this section is the same as the rest of the website: we want it to look professional and intentional, but we don’t want to sound like a corporate zoo.
These are the actual people behind the place, and I’d like the personalities to come through.