San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park
Overview and History
The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park is a wildlife preserve and botanical garden that encompasses about 1800 acres of land and offers a lot of adventure to its visitors. The experience you get from the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park is not like any other zoo experience, and visiting this tourist attraction center is definitely going to be with your time. The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park is home to more than 3,600 animals representing about 400 species in large habitat areas. It also houses about 3,500 plant species.
A lot of stimulation and the opportunity to associate with many other species they might encounter in a natural environment are provided to animals in this park. One of the main purposes of establishing this Park is to create a comfortable environment for animals where they can roam and graze freely.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park was originally called the San Diego Wild Animal Park up until 2010. The name was changed when the vision of the park was modified to allow visitors to have more intimate encounters with animals and adventure experiences that are similar to the experience you get when you really visit a safari. Their activities are designed to give you the best experience so well that you can even camp out between the elephants and lions in the middle of the savanna. Other experiences you can get in the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park include an up close meeting with the animals in a safari setting, getting a condor’s-eye view of the park from a giant balloon and zip-lining over animal enclosures.
Unique Location
It is situated in the San Pasqual Valley area of Seat of San Diego County, California, near east Escondido along California State Route 78. Its environment is semi-arid. In San Diego County, it is one of the largest tourist attraction centers. There’s a lot of varieties of wild and endangered animals in the park including species from Africa, Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia and it has a large collection of hoofed mammals.
The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park is popular among tourists and visited by over two million people every year. The world’s largest veterinary hospital is located in the park and close to the hospital is the Institute for Conservation Research, which houses the Frozen Zoo of the park. It also serves as a quarantine center in Southern California for zoo animals imported through San Diego into the United States.
Maintenance and Management
The nonprofit San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is in charge of running both the San Diego Zoo and its Safari Park in San Diego. The distance between the park and the zoo is 32 miles (51 km). The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park has an employee size of approximately 400 to 600 in numbers depending on the season.
Exhibits and attractions in the San Diego Zoo include Tiger Trail, Asian Savanna and African Plains, Lion Camp, Nairobi Village and Gorilla Forest, African Woods and African Outpost, Hidden Jungle, Condor Ridge, Gardens, Tours and rides and Walkabout Australia.
Another place of interest: San Diego Bay and San Diego Harbor
