Join our zoo community

San Diego Zoo Safari Park Put Me In The Zoo: San Diego Safari Park Review

Discussion in 'United States' started by DavidBrown, 28 Mar 2013.

  1. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

    Joined:
    12 Aug 2008
    Posts:
    4,867
    Location:
    California, USA
    Put Me In The Zoo: San Diego Zoo Safari Park Review

    Date of visit: February 9, 2013

    The San Diego Zoo Safari Park (SDSZP) is a 1500 acre sister park of the San Diego Zoo. It contains several huge field exhibits that are themselves the size of many zoos (50-100 acres). The park is renowned for its diversity of African and Asian ungulates. The primary way of seeing the park for the first three decades of its existence was an hour-plus long monorail ride around the large field exhibits that make up most of the park. The monorail was decommissioned in 2004 and replaced with a tram ride that now gives a tour only of the African section of the park.

    The Asian exhibits that used to be visited by the monorail are now inaccessible to most park visitors and can only be seen by up-charge “safari” packages additional to basic park admission. For many people this has diminished the park experience. There have been many theme-park “attractions” added in the first decade of the 21st century that are not animal related such as a zip-line, rope course, and Segway scooter tours. Some concern has been raised that these attractions are turning the SDSZP into more of a pale theme park than the outstanding zoo that it was. I shared this concern and had not visited the park for a few years because my enjoyment of the park post-monorail felt much diminished.

    I greatly enjoyed my February 2013 visit to the SDSZP. I still miss the monorail, but the guide for my African tram “safari” was excellent. One of the outstanding features of the SDZSP is that there are large areas of immersive planting. Parts of the park really do feel like the African savanna or the Sonoran desert

    Does this zoo satisfy the reviewer’s Inner-3-Year-Old by featuring his lifelong favorite animals, giraffes and elephants?

    The San Diego Safari Park (SDSP) may be one of the best zoos in the world to watch African elephants and giraffes. They have a family herd of African savanna elephants with all ages, sexes, and social relationships of individuals. If you want to watch baby elephants frolic and play with older siblings and get a sense of what the social life of this species is like, then the San Diego Safari Park is the place to go. The elephant exhibit is not as lush or naturalistic as the one at Disney Animal Kingdom, which also has a large social herd, but SDSP has the advantage of unlimited elephant viewing whereas DAK’s herd can only be glimpsed for a minute or two at a time from their safari ride.

    The giraffe herds are similarly in enclosures and herd sizes much larger than at other zoos, so one sees natural interactions and behavior, like galloping, which might not happen in typical giraffe exhibits. As of the time of this review the SDSP has herds of Masai and Rothschild’s giraffes.

    Does this zoo have any animals that would excite a zoo aficionado?

    Two of the world’s last Northern White Rhinos (a 38-year old female and 30-year old male), California condors, more antelope and other ungulate species than most zoos have including some of the only Cape buffalo in North America.

    Does this zoo have any immersion exhibits that would impress a zoo aficionado?

    The African lion exhibit is excellent. The California condor exhibit gives a great view of the condors that frequently fly around it. The field exhibits allow for views of large herds of ungulates engaging in natural behavior at scales that cannot be seen at many other zoos. I saw a herd of springbok pronking up and down a hillside – it was magical, and something that I have only seen in the wild previously.

    Does this zoo have any good basic exhibits?

    The African savanna elephant exhibit is large and has good views that allow viewing of their large herd unconstrained by distance or time limits. The gorilla exhibit was state of the art in the 1970s. It is still large enough and well-planted enough to be adequate, but is not naturalistic in the modern tradition of gorilla exhibits.

    Does this zoo have any exhibits that should be bulldozed?

    I think that the challenge for this zoo is rebuilding access for most visitors to what they have already bulldozed, namely the old monorail tour. The Asian animal field exhibits, a substantial section of the zoo, remain inaccessible to most visitors.

    Does this zoo have any elements that make it particularly family friendly?

    There are play areas spread throughout the park. There is a contact yard and “animal encounters” with animals that people can pet or get close to throughout the day.

    The park is very large so a fair amount of walking is involved. I would think that most kids would find the rewards of watching an African elephant herd, pride of lions, or group of California condors worth it though.

    Does this zoo have any interesting plans for the future?

    A new Sumatran tiger exhibit is scheduled to open in 2014. From conceptual plans released by the zoo it will provide several naturalistic exhibits for multiple tigers. The current tiger exhibit is huge, densely planted, and great for the tigers, but very hard for visitors to see the tigers and almost impossible to watch close up. The new exhibit promises to provide a much better tiger watching experience for visitors and thus presumably increased tiger conservation awareness. Construction on the new exhibit had not started as of my visit in February 2013 and its unclear what the current target date is for opening the exhibit – it has been in the planning stages for several years.

    The park has announced in the past that normal visitor access will eventually be restored for viewing the Asian field exhibits that were essentially rendered invisible when the monorail was closed. Hiking trails to view the exhibits and perhaps an Asian animal tram tour like the current African animal tour have been mentioned in past zoo publicity, but no specific plans or timelines have been announced.

    Would a zoo aficionado like this zoo enough to go out of his or her way to visit it?

    This is one of the great zoos of the world. I would think that most zoo aficionados would have this zoo on their life list of places to visits.
     
  2. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

    Joined:
    13 Jun 2007
    Posts:
    23,400
    Location:
    New Zealand
    just out of interest, how often do you visit the San Diego zoos David? The distance between San Diego and LA isn't great (like two hours or so?), but for "regular" non-Zoochat-type people is that prohibitive for day trips just for a zoo visit?
     
  3. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

    Joined:
    12 Aug 2008
    Posts:
    4,867
    Location:
    California, USA
    Hey Chlidonias, people from LA regularly go to San Diego for the day. The zoo advertises heavily in the LA media market.

    I now live about an hour from LA proper, so don't make it down to San Diego as often as I used to. When I lived in LA I would go down to the (then) Wild Animal Park maybe three or four times a year and the zoo maybe two to three times.

    One would think with the proximity that San Diego and Los Angeles Zoos might not get along very well as they potentially fight for "market share", but they seem to have a very productive relationship by cooperating on breeding programs and conservation projects like the California condor reintroduction.
     
  4. IanRRobinson

    IanRRobinson Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    2 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    1,314
    Location:
    Northamptonshire
    San Diego, along with Chicago, New York, Berlin, Singapore and maybe Sydney is one of the great zoo cities. I just wish I lived nearer!!