Great zoos are hard to find. There are good reasons for this, the primary one being cost. Keeping a Siberian tiger healthy and happy takes a lot of money. Another good reason is habitat. Koalas, for example, eat nothing but fresh eucalyptus leaves – you can’t even give them frozen ones. Housing arctic polar bears next to desert camels requires some creative thinking.
So, with all the difficulty facing them, how does a relatively small city like San Diego maintain not one but TWO world-class zoos? I can’t provide the answers, but I can attest to the fact: the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are two of the finest zoos you will find anywhere. They are certainly on the short list of best zoos in the US and probably both make a “Top 10 Zoos in the World” list.
We invested a Sunday in the San Diego Zoo a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, as usual, in San Diego, though right on the cusp of requiring a jacket – one of those days where you get too hot if you wear it and get too cold if you don’t. The Safari Park is actually closer to Temecula by about 20 minutes, but is vaster and is harder to see on foot. We opted for the more traditional zoo.
The park is organized around 9 walking trails, named after families of animals. We, of course, went immediately to the Monkey Trail, then hopped over to the Tiger Trail and saw bits of the Orangutan Trail and the Hippo Trail. That took most of the day, with a break for lunch. Then we opted for the free bus tour to see the rest of the park.
San Diego Zoo map
We saw many beautiful and strange animals, of course, including some that I not only had never seen before but didn’t know existed. The highlight, though, was encountering a cheetah on a leash – the park staff regularly takes their cheetahs out for walks around the park, accompanied by a large dog on a leash, who apparently demonstrates proper leash behavior for the wild cheetah.
Sorry about the cheetah shot – I was so stunned by the encounter that I didn’t even think to capture it until the cheetah was nearly out of sight.
Cheetah on a leash
Giraffes
Proud bighorn
Bull elephant
Orangutan
Playful young orangutan
Exotic birds
Silverback gorilla’s right foot
Gorillas
Flamingos
We also saw a very informative presentation on a particular asian owl (I forget the exact breed now, but it was similar to a Great Horned).
Lunch was good, too, and surprisingly inexpensive. But no Tiger Steak on the menu.
