![]() ![]() LEFT: Tonk and Irene – RIGHT: Lion cub born in 2019 Or to watch a group of zebras, with their stripe patterns running all the way up to their bristly manes, each as unique as a fingerprint. It is a thrill to come face-to-face with an ostrich peering through your (closed) car window, to see a rhino munching hay, nostrils flaring, an ever-present white cattle egret on its back or on the ground near its massive horn. Lion Country African Safari gets about 500,000 visitors per year, Ms. The park’s lion enclosures are compliant with 2021 USDA regulations. And we live in a litigious state, anyway.” “But the lions have always been a major safety concern, and over the years it’s become more and more an issue. “We don’t take this decision lightly,” Terry Wolf, the park’s wildlife director at the time, told The New York Times in a Jan. ![]() Don’t get out of the vehicle.īut where the lions were concerned, too many visitors were opening their windows, and sometimes even their doors, to get a better view. The change was made in November 2005 simply for liability’s sake. Visitors still can see them and watch their movements, but only through a tall chain link fence with electrified wires at the top. They roam freely within those enclosures. There are nine lions, five males and four females, in two separate habitats of about five acres each. The animals still roam free, outside visitors’ vehicles - except for the park’s namesake. They are Las Pampas, grasslands of South America Ruaha National Park and Kalahari Bushveldt, both in Africa Gir Forest, a national park in India The Gorongosa Reserve, Serengeti Plains and Hwange National Park, all in Africa. The park’s safari drive takes you on a road winding four miles through seven habitats modeled after famous national parks, wildlife preserves and other wilderness areas. Scimitar horned oryx graze at Lion Country. “Either animals are born here or relocated from other facilities that are accredited.” AZA-accredited institutions must go through the process every five years. In fact, it was just re-accredited in April by an independent team that did a multiday inspection of the park’s facilities, animal and veterinary care, safety and other elements. Lion Country Safari also is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The park has more than 900 animals, including the largest herd of zebras on record in the western hemisphere (56), Ms. The intention is “to be the proverbial ark or lifeboat” for the species, she said “The idea is to make sure species that are threatened or endangered are otherwise healthy genetically, with a viable population under human care for the next 100 years,” she said. Nearly all the species of rhinoceros are threatened with extinction. ![]() Rhinos graze at Lion Country Safari, west of West Palm Beach. Zebras, giraffes, ostriches, antelopes, rhinoceroses – and especially lions – roamed freely. Government regulations on importing exotic animals were, shall we say, more “casual” at the time.įor Americans caught up in the flourishing car culture of the 1960s, combined with convenience, it checked all the boxes.Īfter working hard all week, Dad could hop in the car with Mom and the kids, drive 15 miles west of the coast and be transported to another world, where you could see animals you otherwise never could dream of seeing in the flesh. They brought in about 100 lions along with sundry other wildlife from Africa, India and South America. In 1967, Lion Country Safari was born, the first-ever safari park and, as the founders put it, “cageless zoo” in the country. They bought 600 acres in rural Loxahatchee in Palm Beach County. They would create a place where people can have the experience of an African safari without ever having to leave the country. But what if the safari could come to you? Few people could afford the time and expense to travel to Africa and view exotic wild animals on safari. ![]()
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