Wild Animal Park

Wild Animal Park

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

June 27, 2002
Wild Animal Park
The Wild Animal Park is part of the San Diego Zoo, but is fashioned in more of a natural habitat. For example,below is a picture of their Africa area. You can see that all the animals common to that area (with the exception of predators) are kept together.

The park is very large, but you can take a 55-minute narrated tour around it on a monorail (get on the right side to see the majority of the animals -- first five rows are the "quiet zone").

Rhinos are on the symbol for the Wild Animal Park. Here is a mother and baby rhino.

A few days before going to San Diego, I saw a special on National Geographic that talked about these two animals below. The baby Rhino (in the shadow) had been abandoned by its mother, so the keepers had to take care of it. However, to keep it from getting lonely, they gave it a friend -- not another Rhino, but a Goat! They seem to get along just fine.

A similar thing happened to this Cheetah, but the friend they gave it was a Black Labrador Retriever (you can just see its face to the right of the Cheetah). The two were born about the same time, but the Lab grew faster. Therefore, when they were still young and would play-fight, the Lab would always win. Now that the Cheetah is old enough and could easily kill the dog, it doesn't attack the Lab because the Cheetah is used to the Lab always winning the fights. The keepers say that the Cheetah does whatever the Lab wants it to do.

This Condor is one of the birds in their bird show.

While taking the monorail ride, this California Golden Eagle decided to come visit. It lives in the park, but is not officially one of their animals.

These two animals below were some of the cutest animals at the Wild Animal Park. Cha Cha (the elephant on the left) is so named because she has a little dance he likes to do. The baby gorilla on the right was just too cute.