San Diego Zoo Safari Park Field Exhibits ca. 1985

Ituri

Ituri

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I just got a new (to me) Mammal Identification Guide to the San Diego Wild Animal Park today. I was geeking out about the species mixes from 1985 and thought there is probably at least a couple other zoochatters who might be interested in this list so here goes...

EAST AFRICA
Diana monkey (on an island in the lake presumably)
northern white rhinoceros
pygmy hippopotamus
Thomson's gazelle
Roosevelt's gazelle
East African sitatunga
Patterson's eland
Cape buffalo
Lake Victoria defassa waterbuck
Nile lechwe
Uganda kob
Kenya impala
eastern white-bearded wildebeest
jimela topi
Angolan roan antelope
fringe-eared oryx
Rothschild's giraffe

CAT CANYON
Asian lion
Sumatran tiger

HILLSIDE EXHIBITS
Grevy's zebra
Persian onager

ARABIAN DESERT
Arabian oryx
sand gazelle

ASIAN PLAINS
Indian rhinoceros
blackbuck
Persian goitered gazelle
Russian saiga
nilgai
Indian gaur
Armenian mouflon
Indian axis deer
Indian barasingha deer
Altai wapiti
Indochinese sika deer
Javan rusa deer
Malayan sambar deer

NORTHERN AFRICA
Arabian camel
slender-horned gazelle
addra gazelle
addax
scimitar-horned oryx

SOUTHERN AFRICA
Hartmann's mountain zebra
southern white rhinoceros
South African black rhinoceros
Angolan springbok
Cape eland
ellipsen waterbuck
white-tailed wildebeest
blesbok
South African sable antelope
gemsbok

GREATER KUDU EXHIBIT
greater kudu

ASIAN WATERHOLE
Malayan tapir!?!?!?
Sunda wild boar
domestic water buffalo
Turkomen markhor
Afghan urial
Central Chinese goral
Japanese serow
Indian hog deer
Central European red deer
Formosan sika deer
Timor rusa deer
Ceylonese sambar
European fallow deer
Reeve's muntjac

MOUNTAIN HABITAT
Siberian ibex
Himalayan tahr

MONGOLIAN STEPPE
Przewalski's horse
domestic Bactrian camel

BABOON HILL (current bonobo)
mandrill

BONGO EXHIBIT
East African bongo
yellow-backed duiker

GERENUK EXHIBIT
northern gerenuk
southern lesser kudu

OKAPI EXHIBIT
Cotton's oribi
okapi

KILIMANJARO TRAIL PENS
South African cheetah
Masai klipspringer
mhorr gazelle
West African bushbuck
Maxwell's duiker
Kafue lechwe

NYALA EXHIBIT
Lowland nyala
bay duiker
 
Back in the day....amazing.

I do remember fondly both the Wild Boar and Tapir in the Asian exhibits--and the pygmy hippo with jaws open "defending turf" against various hoofed creatures in "East Africa"...
 
So where the tapir actually out in the field exhibit or were they in the shady section on the western tip where the serow and goral used to be separated into?
 
Very cool - thanks for posting!!!
Some things have changed little, others are very different. I had forgotten about the 'side pens' towards the end of the ride.
 
It's interesting to me to note what is missing from this list. Pere David's deer, white-lipped deer, kiang, and banteng are some of the more notable ones.
 
The Malayan tapir were in the main Asian Waterhole exhibit, I remember it well because I took a Photo Safari and the male was named Sherman and he was only let out at the end of the day after the keepers were done in the exhibit, I think he was especially nosy and rambunctious with them. I wish I still had my field guide, it was probably from 1985, the same year. It was a souvenir which came with the Photo Safari participation. I also remember the Kilimanjaro Walking Trail enclosure for Kafue lechwe, since I was given my choice of all the animals to adopt at the park and being an antelope fan, I chose the Kafue lechwe! I don't remember why they were my favorites with so many others to consider there, I also loved the nyalas and kudus and sitatunga. They also had Kafue lechwe in the large canyon exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, which coincidentally had a nice seperate exhibit for Malayan tapirs. There was a large boardwalk over the canyon exhibit. The canyon and tapir area was replaced in 1988 by Tiger River, and a very small part of some of the rockwork toward the upper entrance is actually the back wall rockwork for the old tapir exhibit. Anyway, I also remember the Asian Waterhole exhibit at WAP having a very odd herd...the boars liked to hang out with the wisent group, I think they were inseperable! I remember seeing the hog deer and Reeve's muntjac, which were rarely seen from the monorail.
 
Oh and that odd herd I mentioned included the water buffalo! I always wondered if they made mozzarella as a side business!
 
geomorph said:
Oh and that odd herd I mentioned included the water buffalo! I always wondered if they made mozzarella as a side business!
Click to expand...

Well, you never saw the keepers out there milking the buffalo did you? ;)
 
No, I never saw any milking action! Oh and the Malayan tapir Sherman was named after the tank!
 
Sheramn actually ended up coming to Toronto Zoo adn passed away in his late 20s/early 30s about 3 or 4 years ago
 
Correction: the San Diego Zoo's canyon enclosure contained Nile lechwe, not Kafue lechwe! I just unearthed some old photos I took way back when.
 
Cascade Canyon (the current site of Tiger River) also at one point housed Speke's sitatunga, but I'm not sure if that was before or after the Nile lechwe.

edit

Also, if you could scan and post said photos, that'd be grand!
 
Yes I believe the Speke's sitatunga were in that enclosure at the same time as the Nile lechwe, my photo of that area is only a closeup of a Nile lechwe, but I will scan some old San Diego Zoo photos I have and post them eventually, I have some good ones of the Whittier Southeast Asian Exhibits when it was fairly new, as well as a pretty complete set of the Kopje Exhibit. I also have some of the photos from the WAP Photo Caravan so I'll do those too!
 
Ituri, I just posted my Nile lechwe picture in the San Diego Zoo gallery, more to come later!
 
Ituri, I forgot to post that I scanned and posted my old pics of the Whittier Southeast Asian Exhibits and Kopje Exhibit at the San Diego Zoo...I even posted them in the appropriate gallery! Still haven't scanned those WAP pics yet though.
 
Ituri, I have just posted mt scanned pictures of the Wild Animal Park's field exhibits, circa 1983! I posted them in the gallery.
 
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