San Diego: Wild Animal Park

We went to the San Diego Wild Animal over the MLK long weekend in Jan 2010 wit Anup Deshmukh and Puneet Gupta and Cos.. We went because we didn’t have any other plans for that weekend but I must say we were pleasantly surprised. It’s not your typical zoo. Originally, the Wild Animal Park was a breeding ground for the famous San Diego Zoo, until the zoo authorities decided to open it up for visitors too.

Now, the Wild Animal Park will use the word ‘Safari’ a lot, but don’t expect to feel as if in South-Africa. Albeit, I haven’t been to South Africa but at the Wild Animal Park never ever does one get the feeling that they are truly in the ‘wild’. Singapore Night Safari still takes the crown for that one.

A word of warning: I heard a lot of animals names at the park than I care to remember. My vocabulary for animals goes something like this – long horned sheep like brown deer, short horn deer, no horn midget deer, big horn buffalo, buffalo that looks like 4th grader teacher, ok the last part is a joke but rest is true. So, do not expect this blog will give insight into animal kingdom.

The Wild Animal Park isn’t an all inclusive park. The charge of $35 for entry into the park which includes a tram ride and stuff you can do walking. But there are large sections of the park that are just unavailable unless a special tour is taken. Which usually run anywhere from $35 to $150. So plan your budget accordingly. If you think you’ll frequent the park or you are a group of 4, take the park membership for $90.This gives unlimited access + 2 free guest passes. I say this here since it’s not clearly mentioned on the park website.

We bought tickets to the ‘Asian Golf Cart Safari’ (I told you this isn’t South Africa). Our tour was at 2pm. We were advised to rush to the African Safari since it gets really crowded later on. So making minimal stops for photos we reach the place the safari was set to leave.

On the way, we saw ducks, quite a bit of them, and they were not scared to approach us. We went to a petting cage where there were 2 types of about 15 deer (no horns). One could feed & pet them. We saw some other birds, parrots, macaws, a weird looking rodent like creature called Pudu. (Yes, I remember its name).

The most memorable stop we made was at the Lion enclosure. Two, 2 yr old lions were on ‘display’. The alpha male and two lionesses were inside, resting. No really. Then all 5 lions began to roar, it was deafening.

Finally, we boarded our ‘African Safrai Ride’. It was a tram much like the one at Disneyland which brings people into the park from the parking lots. The tram driver stopped at designated stops pointed out animals around us, deer, cheetah, giraffes, zebras, more deer, African rhino, buffalo etc. It was a good 30-40 min ride.

After the safari we made our way along the paved trails to elephant enclosures. We were fortunate to watch a big dude push aside a smaller elephant one who tried to steal his food. This was probably the highlight of the park - The animal behavior was on display rather than the animals themselves. We sat on benches by the enclosure watching the elephants and plotting our next move.

After some deliberation we decided it was lunch time. We had lunch by the shoebill area where a weird looking bird called ‘Shoebill’ and other water loving birds were housed. Surprising these birds of flight don’t fly away! Shoebill looked like darth vader to me. See picture.

After lunch we made our way to the Asian Safari. The 15 people golf-cart makes it way thru the African enclosures before taking a backroad way into Asian part of the park - Best of both worlds. This golf cart tour is a must do!! It shows Asian animals that one would never see if they just did the walking tour. The walking tour just doesn’t go to these parts of the park. I even thought this tour covered a lot more animals than the African part. Our guide was very informative about the animals, their behavior and her and the parks experience in dealing with them. This made the narration interesting. We saw, buffalo, wild horses, lots of different varieties of deers, rhinos & my favorite - Neel Gai.

After the ride, we walked up a trail towards the condor enclosure stopping at the Tiger enclosure on the way. But the tiger eluded us. Later I found out not many people have seen the tiger at the park. May be next time! Meanwhile, Puneet, Anup and co went to see the 4-D movie. Condor is a large endangered bird found in the Grand Canyon area. We were lucky to see 3-4 birds. They are gi-normous.

By now it was getting dark. The animals were returning to their caves/shelters and so did we.

by Kartik Gupte