San Diego Safari Zoo

You all know about San Diego Zoo, but did you know there is also a San Diego Zoo Safari Park?

It's run by San Diego Zoo, and it was started many years ago as a breeding area for mostly larger animals for the actual Zoo.  Since then, it's main purpose is still that, but it now does that for many other zoos around the world, and focuses on animals from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and South America.

It has the worlds largest veterinary hospital, a frozen zoo with DNA from extinct and endangered animals, and is nine times as big as the San Diego Zoo, with most of the animals not living in cages, but instead living in their environment.  The park itself is about 1800 acres, with a large chunk of that one large area representing Africa with many different animals living together in that area.

Like life in Africa, the animals tend to stay in their own groups, with their main predator - the lion and tiger, in their own enclosures, but near enough they can still hear the tiger and lion's roar.

It was an extremely clean park, and beautiful with botanical gardens, over 3500 different plants all over the place (you would never know it was just sagebrush and cactus before!), lakes, and over 2600 different animals representing more than 300 different species.

A tram takes you on a 30-40 minute tour of "Africa and Asia" and it definitely was the highlight of the day!

There are only 5 of these rhinos left in the world.  Two are here at the park.

There is a tethered balloon that takes you 400 feet up to get a birds eye view of the park. (Additional charge of course)

If you are feeling a little spendy, you can opt for the truck ride that actually goes inside where the animals are.  Many times the giraffes and rhinos come up to the truck to get food.  It's only an additional $120 per person.  We did not do this. Maybe next time.

This is a HUGE aloe vera plant.

This is some animal I forgot the name of, but it's endangered and I think there are only a handful left.  It's related to the giraffe and zebra. Notice the head and ears are just like a giraffe!

Jacob and Hannah get a little more wet than they thought they would walking on the lilly pads.

These wart hogs are so ugly!  But look friendly!

Heading into "Tiger Land"

A tigers roar can be heard for 3 miles!

We had a GREAT time at this park and would totally recommend it!  Two thumbs up!  It's about 35-40 miles north of San Diego Zoo.