San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park is being renamed.
The new name, approved by the zoo’s board of directors in July, is San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
The site remains the same — about 1,800 acres, with about 3,500 animals in rolling hills near Escondido, about 30 miles north of the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, close to downtown San Diego.
For several months to come, the zoo folk say, the institution will be easing visitors through the transition from one name to another.
Why the change? Partly because the word “safari,” officials say, gives a more succinct idea of what it’s like to visit the park, where animals roam large areas reminiscent of the African savanna. The word “safari” comes from Swahili, meaning “journey.”
The Wild Animal Park opened about 30 years ago.
Californians with long memories will recall Lion Country Safari, a drive-through, for-profit enterprise that operated animal parks in Orange County and several other locations from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The Lion Country Safari near West Palm Beach, Fla., appears to be the only one remaining.
