San Diego Trip - Day 4 Wild Animal Park

We decided that since we spent the previous day seeing sea animals at Sea World that maybe we should go look at land animals. Our fourth day in San Diego was spent at the Wild Animal Park.  The park is huge.  The basic idea is that instead of keeping the animals in small enclosures like normal zoos they have the animals in gigantic enclosures that attempt to imitate their native habitat.  A couple of the areas they have open for the animals are larger than 60 acres (aka larger than the world famous normal San Diego Zoo).  This leaves the animals free to roam around as they would in the wild.

With one small exception. The predators aren't in the same enclosures as the prey. The Wild Animal park main function is to breed endangered species. Leaving the predators in with the endangered species isn't the best idea.  The interesting thing is that the predator species are intentionally left upwind of the prey species. The smell and sounds of predators acts as an aphrodisiac for the other animals and encourages them to breed.

Almost the entire time that I was in the park I couldn't get a movie out of my head. The place just reminded me too much of Jurassic Park.  Wide open enclosures, double electric gates, animals wondering freely around the park, a train ride that went through all of the enclosures, enclosures where you would stand for a long time and wonder "does this wild animal park actually have animals?" There were even a couple of buildings that could double as the velociraptor pit. (Buildings that were actually used to care for pregnant and recently born animals.)

They offered a 2 hour photo safari in which you go into a bunch of the larger enclosures and interact a bit more closely with the animals. They put you in the back of a truck and you drive through all the areas of the park while a guide talks to you about all the animals. It allows you to get a lot closer to the animals than walking around the paths or even their train rides.

As part of the tour you feed Giraffe's acacia leaves. You stood against the back of the truck and handed them leaves as their head was over their shoulder. It was amazing how much character giraffes actually possess.  It was also pretty funny at how impatient they were. If you were too slow in handing up the leaves they would lean down and grab them from your other hand.  The level of impatient varied. Some would go after a couple of seconds; others as soon as you had given them a leaf.

The other animal that we gave food to was a rhinoceros.  While the rhinos didn't have the character of the giraffes they still knew what was going on. As soon as they saw a hand extend from the truck they would open their mouths so you could throw an apple slice into their mouth.