San Diego Zoo Safari Park May 15th in SD

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sandiegomaster

Well-Known Member
Today was a great day with lots of interesting information from my trip to the wild animal park. First I want to complain about the new show. It has some great animals, especially a fossa and a honey badger. They also had a python, twp birds, a warthog, two cheetahs and a serval. The honey badger was great since I have never seen one before. The show completely rips off sea world san diego, including having there own version of biff and the "who let the dogs out song" with running dogs, along with a pig that gets the audience wet. This show was terrible cheesy and poorly done, way to much like sea world and needs changed.

The butterfly house is closed currently, the red river hog has two piglets and it looks like the gorilla is pregnant, but that is solely by look, no guarantee.

We got there late since we were watching the Madea race another 100 year old steam yacht in the harbor at the maritime museum so we were unable to go through the heart of africa, but we did get on the monorail.

The new birds marsh is finished and there is at least thirty barbary sheep and three somali wild asses. They are breeding the somali wild asses currently. The flamingos are in there breading ground making three completed exhibits out of the eight that they hope to finish by the end of this year, but the tram lady said it may take until the end of 2011.

The fourth exhibit is the mountain zebra and they have not started building there cage. There was a young Grevy Zebra and we got to watch a pair mating from the JIA ride.

The fifth exhibit she said was a crocodile exhibit that will start soon.

The sixth one should be the rock hyrax and kilpspringer exhbit which was finished but unoccupied.

The seventh one they said will be the Dholes, but then one of the other ladies that was also a zoo employee at the end of the tram ride said that they are coming but that might not be one of the eight new exhibits that they are still raising money for so I don't know if this is it.

The final one is also in question, both ladies said that they are planing a painted dog exhibit but that seems to be more of a future hope and not one of the expected new additions, so in the end there still could be two more exhibits coming that are unknown.

There is a new baby black rhino and another expected shortly.
A new baby elephant, born three days ago, fourth male in a row. One elephant is pregnant and will have her kid next year in Jan.
All 8 rothschild giraffe adult females are pregnant after have seven newborns 6-12 months ago.

No word on tiger trails and no visit to condor ridge although they are building something by condor ridge, I saw that they had a giant area taped off and that they had a large fake tree log that was being put into place. Don't know what it is and you can see it as you walk from the tigers to the elephants.

That is all for now, visiting the zoo and sea world tomorrow.
 
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Very interesting trip report. Thank you. The crocodile thing is something I have not heard of. The park map has stated that the old lion habitat would become an exhibit for Chinese dholes for some time.

As for the wild dogs, the April 2008 Zoonooz states:
The scope of our future plans is wide-ranging yet strategic. At the Wild Animal Park, projects include eight new bird and mammal habitats that will grace the perimeter of the Journey into Africa tour, an Asian Tiger Trail, an African wild dog environment, and a Wildlife Disease Prevention and Training Center.
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and as far as what the eight exhibits for JiA are, they were laid out online and in the Zoonooz magazine as the following:

* greater flamingo habitat on the edge of the East Africa lake.
* a southern African marsh with yellow-billed stork, Egyptian geese and goliath herons
* a habitat adjacent to the marsh with Soemmerring's gazelle (originally planned as steenbok)
* a scrub habitat for lappet-faced and Rueppell's vulture and southern ground hornbill.
* a desert habitat for Somali wild ass and Barbary sheep
* Hartmann's mountain zebra
* a kopje habitat for klipspringers and rock hyrax
* a marsh habitat for crowned cranes, blue-winged goose, white storks, and ground hornbills
Click to expand...

Also good news about the black rhino births.
 
Thanks for the trip report. Wow an African Wild Dog exhibit? That's not in the master plan...haha. I wonder where they would put it, maybe somewhere by the picnic area? Its cool though, hopefully SDWAP will join San Antonio, Bronx, and Woodland Park Zoo as zoos with great Wild Dog exhibits.

I believe about 5 of those exhibits around JiA have already been finished. Also, I didn't see the kopje exhibit in construction at all though. What's it like?
 
Regarding that show...

Question: Is that show you mentioned their only one? I recall, from a visit in the late 80's, they had a dedicated birds-of-prey show. Does it no longer exist?

If that's the case, I would have to say the park has lost quite a bit of its appeal for me, especially given the SeaWorld-wannabe composition of the show you described. I always considered SDWAP to be, if you will, a 'Zoo on Steroids' in terms of quality of presentation.

From your description, it sounds like some refugee from SeaWorld's marketing department managed to get a job there, and is doing their level best to contaminate the place.

My lady and I are going to visit next year in any case, but I think I'll send her a link to this thread. Forewarned is forearmed.

Oh! BTW, it's 'breeding,' please, not 'breading.' The latter makes it sound like they're covering the critters in bread crumbs.
 
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Hey Ituri

The current marsh habitat that is open has yellow-billed storks, Egyptian geese, goliath herons, two species of vultures, and blue-winged geese. There are east African crowed cranes out in the large animal exhibit with the southern white rhinos. The west African crowned cranes are in the first exhibit as you walk into the wild animal park. so I’m not sure they are going to make a second marsh habitat for the white storks and ground hornbills, especially with the tiger trails plans that include a large exhibit on hornbills. The Soemmerring’s gazelle are already out in the main exhibit so I don’t know why they would get their own exhibit unless they are having some problems with other animals so I think that plans might have changed since 2008, but that’s just my opinion.

Otter Lord

The Kopje exhibit was not very impressive yet. It just had its fence up and a few rocks on a sloping hillside. Hopefully they will continue to add to it before putting any animals in it unless this is a special exhibit for the Soemmerring’s gazelle like Ituri said it could be.

Kc7gr

There is still a bird show twice a day that is called frequent flyer, they changed the game show mammal game that was only there for a few years.
 
Here this might help in the discussion. My understanding is that 5 of these 8 are already open. http://www.zoochat.com/297/1-31-10-new-jia-exhibit-129501/

@Kc7gr - The original Steve Martin produced bird show closed its doors several years ago, and was replaced with a SDWAP produced bird show called, Frequent Flyers. I found this show to be at least as good as what it replaced.

It is interesting to note that there is now a Steve Martin produced bird show at Hunte amphitheater at the San Diego Zoo.
 
I wish I would have taken my camera yesterday, that sign is old and has been replaced with a new one. The new one has a picture of the blue cranes and then list four bird species under the picture. There were a few other differences but I was rushing to get on one of the last trams and didn't get to look at it as well as I wanted to and when we got back, JIA was closed.

The exhibit I thought was suppose to be the Hyrax, klipspringer is listed as the southern steenbok exhibit on this sign which makes a lot more sense. Interesting enough, they have made it larger and it goes from the marsh over to where the vultures were suppose to go. They haven't started working on anything where the hyrax, the zebra or white stork red dots are.

The zoo is still asking for money
San Diego Zoo
and shows three sites that haven't been started.

I heard the park is having money issues. The old Asian elephant exhibit was suppose to be added to the African elephant exhibit by December 2009 but they have not been able to get the money to remodel and have not even started it yet. The elephant volunteer said that those plans are currently on permanent and they are preparing to send away the current bull and replace him with the new bull that the park has in the old Asian elephant side. They are also going to sent away a few females with there kids to zoos in Florida and Texas. She was very upset when she was telling me this, but this is just a rumor at this point.
 
I am very interested to see what JIA will be like with the new additions. I am definitely glad somali wild ass are visible again. Part of me thinks this will be great, giving visitors much more to see, and part of me thinks it will lessen the once great wide open field experience. I hope the first part of me is right, because it is too late to go back.

I know some people (like my cousin in L.A.) who like the WAP a lot more than the Zoo. I used to be that way, then for a while liked them both equally, but now I think I like the WAP more again. If these exhibits and the new tiger area turn out nicely, and if they build the rumored hotel on the edge of the back field exhibit, the WAP could become perhaps the premiere animal park in the United States.

I would really like to see them renovate the gorilla exhibit, though. It has gone downhill and is kind of bland but has a lot of potential.
 
They are going to combine the two elephant yards at the WAP by adding an elephant crossing. It's going to be done in a way that will still allow them to separate the two yards if they need to.

From what I've heard, the bull elephants are getting switched around for breeding and genetic diversity purposes. I don't know anything about the females moving.

The hotel rumor is just that at this point. It's been discussed, but as far as I know, is not going to happen any time in the near future.
 
sandiegomaster said:
Hey Ituri

The current marsh habitat that is open has yellow-billed storks, Egyptian geese, goliath herons, two species of vultures, and blue-winged geese. There are east African crowed cranes out in the large animal exhibit with the southern white rhinos. The west African crowned cranes are in the first exhibit as you walk into the wild animal park. so I’m not sure they are going to make a second marsh habitat for the white storks and ground hornbills, especially with the tiger trails plans that include a large exhibit on hornbills. The Soemmerring’s gazelle are already out in the main exhibit so I don’t know why they would get their own exhibit unless they are having some problems with other animals so I think that plans might have changed since 2008, but that’s just my opinion.
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I believe you are mistaken, the Soemmerring's Gazelle are already in their exhibit, not in the main field exhibits. There are currently in this exhibit: http://www.zoochat.com/297/1-31-10-jia-soemmerring-s-129511/ which is where it is located on the map and right after the marsh exhibit with the Goliath Herons, Yellow-billed Stork, Wattled Crane, etc.There's were least 5 gazelle in it and the exhibit had been taken over by mustard plants.
 
Yeah when I went, the exhibit that was listed as Southern Steenbok had the Soemmerring's Gazelle in it. Are you sure it wasn't thomson's gazelle they mentioned. Then again the Society has so much Gazelle, they probably put Soemmerring's in main enclosure too.

Oh yeah, and I remember seeing one yellow backed duiker in the enclosure too.
 
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