Wild Animal Park Trip 12/31/2005

Spent the day at the Wild Animal Park, an adjunct of the San Diego Zoo about thirty miles north. Our membership covers admission to both. New Years Eve we expected it to be less crowded than usual, and rain was forecast, so even better. It was wonderful, and just enough people that nobody minded talking to anybody else. Nice and cool and most of the animals loved it.



(If it bursts anyone's bubble to learn that it rain in San Diego, sorry. Once every three years whether we need it or not.)



This first one is what my dogs were bred to hunt, so it's a good thing they don't admit wiener dogs to the park. A nine month old badger. His mom was killed by a car up in Ventura County, and the zoo has been training him to put on these "animal encounters".



Red Tailed Hawks, one of whom was flying.



Bald Eagle.



California Condors. Wasn't too long ago these were extinct in the wild. They were down to nine total at one point. It was only about twenty years ago they were sucessfully bred in captivity - Sisquoc (the first hatched) made the news worldwide. This is where they bred most of what has been released (The Los Angeles Zoo also has a smaller program). Now they have a couple hundred. It looks like my girls are likely to grow up in a California where these can be seen not only in zoos, but in the wild.



There's a trail that goes round most of the park, but not that many folks walk it. It's probably two to three miles, and there's a lot of steep places, but you can see stuff there that people who won't walk can't. Got some pictures of the lion in the older lion enclosure. The white tiger was hiding today. But this is the first of two panoramic views I took from about halfway down the trail towards lion camp, just to give people who may not have visited an idea of how big the park is. The two people in the lower right are my wife and older daughter. The second photo was taken from exactly the same spot, turned about 120 degrees. Nor can you see the whole park from anywhere except airplanes; it's about 1800 acres (3 square miles).



This is one of several pictures I took at Lion Camp, an exhibit that's only a year or so old. Well laid out; they learned from Tiger River at the Zoo. I went around the corner and took another from a different vantage (no glass in the way, just a moat and wire) but decided not to upload it, and the exhibit as a whole is probably close to an acre.



Getting back to the more travelled areas of the park, this one is a pair of vultures, in Heart of Africa, and is very close, only cropped a little at the sides. Here's a family of gerenuk, and they were scampering about and playing. Despite coming from a hotter part of Africa, the relative cold didn't bother them but the keepers did bring them in. This little baby deer was only a week old, and I just happened to catch a view of him through a hole in the hedge, as he was doing his best to hide behind a rock from the normal viewing area. Finally, the public was being allowed to feed this giraffe, which explains why he was so interested in humans.



Another animal encounter, this one with an owl. I can't remember the type.



The nursery is a favorite stop at the Park, especially when the baby animals are getting fed. Here are a pair of Springboks. And here is a Transvaal Lion cub whose mother had a very difficult birth and had to be delivered caesarian. The posted literature strongly hinted that he's being trained as an animal ambassador, as they don't get canine companions for most animals. And yes, he did lick his keeper full in the face.



The final set of pictures I'm going to share are from the tram ride around the park. Always got to go on the WGASA Bush Line at some point, because the kids get tired of walking. So take my advice and wait until they do get tired, because the line is usually long and they get rambunctious otherwise. There were signs saying we had to be in line by three, and at 3:30 it looked like there was nobody left when our train pulled out, so we thought we were on the last one for the year, but one more pulled around the corner as we were walking to the car, so we weren't.



(There's a story, well known in San Diego, about how the WGASA part of the name came about. They held a contest among zoo employees, and one submitted it. It sounded african, so it won. And after it was publicized and opened, somebody asked him what it meant, and he informed them "Who Gives A S***, Anyway?")



One thing you encounter in the less travelled areas of the park are California Freeloaders. Birds and mammals who are native to the area, and come in to eat the Zoo's plants or swim in the Zoo's ponds. The Zoo actually encourages it a little. I understand we missed Canadian Geese by only a few days. But here are mule deer, a mother and her fawn. These were smallish for Mule deer, I've seen them much bigger in the Sierra Nevada. Next up is a male Golden Eagle, half of one of only fourteen known breeding pairs in California. They live on Zoo property, and the Zoo actually makes certain their nest is undisturbed, but they are not themselves zoo property.



Somali Wild Asses, the one front and center is only about a month old.



A female Serow, from Japan. The opposite enclosure had Chinese Goral, which are closely related, but no pictures good enough.



Three Ibex in the exhibit that used to house mountain goats. The guide said they couldn't catch these three, so they had to be careful as they were doing some work introductory to putting some different animals in. Looking at the exhibit, I want to know how they caught the rest - not to mention all of the sixty-odd mountain goats that used to be in there.



Still from the tram, here are some Rhinos! Rhinos evidently love the rain. The wetter it was, the more they played. Mom and two kids. The older is three years, the younger is about eleven months. Rhinos along the fence. Rhinos at the waterhole. Rhinos scuffling. Two of Rhinos playing, and no, the earth wasn't shaking.



Finally, from near the end of the ride, a Black Rhino mom and her young one. These are half the size of the white rhinos in previous photos.



UPDATE: HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! (You can tell my wife and I are real party animals... not!) Off to bed.