15500 San Pasqual Valley Road
Escondido, CA 92027
(760) 747-8702
http://www.sandiegozoo.org
I visited San Diego Wild Animal Park once when I was about 11 years old. I was still living in Taiwan and came to the U.S. for a family vacation. I remember sitting on the tram for the tour and fell asleep. That was all I remember about the zoo. I have been talking about visitng the zoo again with Dr. P for quite sometime. And Dr. P got me a pair of tickets for Christmas! I took too many pictures so I am going to write about the zoo in 2 parts.
San Diego Wild Animal Park is about 1 hour away from Coronado, where we were staying. We got to the zoo about 10am.
As soon as we entered the zoo, there was the bird exhibit. There were so many birds in this zoo. We saw this one bird with super long beak. I wonder if it gets in the way of... I don't know... doing things?
We hopped on the giant rhino for some pictures.
This chameleon is huge!
Cutest baby cheetahs in the nursery. They don't have spots when they were born. The spots will appear when they get older.
Is this an ant eater?
There were ducks everywhere. Some of them were resting in the shade. Some of them were napping under the sun. They weren't afried of people at all. They didn't even wake up when Dr. P got this close to them.
"Hi hi ducky. May I sit here with you?"
I wanted to take a picture of the ring tailed lemurs. I said, "look over here! look over here!" And the lemur did!
At the petting zoo.
I saw this little sitting at the corner by himself. So I went over to pet him. He has the prettiest eye with really long eyelashes.
He only has one eye. I wonder what happened to him. But he's so sweet and cute.
The axis deers are cute. I remember seeing lots of them in the zoo in Taiwan.
Crazy meerkats. They were all running around like they were really busy going somewhere.
Gorilla! I still haven't gone to LA Zoo to see the new gorilla exhibit. Gotta go visit soon.
Dr. P is almost as big as a gorilla.
I like comparing myself with the gorilla because then I actually feel skinny for once.
Our ticket included the Journey into Africa tour. The tour is about 30 minutes. There was a tour guide giving us a lot of information about the animals.
These two were northern white rhinos. There are only 8 of them left in this world, and San Diego Wild Animal Park has 2 of them. The tour guide said this specie mostly likely will become extinct in our lifetime. Another interesting fact that we learned is that rhinos only reproduce when there are at least 2 females in the group. The female rhino will only mate when she has a "girl friend" around. Therefore, these 2 are very unlikely to mate. But the zoo has saved some cells and sparm/egg from the rhinos. Hopefully in the future they can try artificial insemination with a surrogate rhino or even cloning when the technology becomes available.
I like how they feed the animal. They tied the leaves to the tree so the giraffe still thinks he's eating from the tree.
We caught a vet checking up on this rhino.
Lots of antelopes running around.
Some zebras.
And ostriches. On our way to the Wild Animal Park, we passed by a few ostrich farms. The ostriches were raised for their meat. I really enjoyed the tour. This time I didn't fall asleep! 23 years later, I can understand English now haha. I found the tour very fun, interesting, and informative.
After the tour, we went to see the lions. We caught a male lion jumping to the top of the roof of a car for a nap. Then a female lion follow and went into the car to lie down.
Another view of the lions. The lions can actually see the herbivore animals from the Journey into Africa tour running around. But there were electrical fances around the lion habitat. Also the zookeepers probably keep the lions full and content so they don't get the urge to hunt I guess.
Here's a silly moment of Dr. P! haha....
We passed by an animal show and went in to check it out. We only caught the end of the show. This lady was showing a prairie dog. They look just like squarrel. So cute.
Porcupine! So pretty!
They are actually kinda cute. I want one! haha....
It was about 1:30pm. Time for lunch.... (to be continued)
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Hello Eileen, the pictures are beautiful! they look that you really had fun! I am thinking about planning a visit to the zoo thanks to you hahahhaa.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I had too much fun! Wish to visit again soon.
Carolina: Please note that Eileen visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park----not the San Diego Zoo! (I like the SD Wild Animal Park a lot better than the zoo)
ReplyDeleteI still haven't visited San Diego Zoo.
I think most people like the Wild Animal Park better.
But I still want to visit the zoo someday.
I like the wild animal park better too. We used to take the kids to the SD zoo and wild animal park every year, now we are all sick of it. hah
ReplyDeletehaha so do you take them to LA Zoo now?
Hi Eileen,
ReplyDeleteI was browsing for some footage of a fellow employee and came across your webpage. Great pictures and comments. I wanted to let you know that the one eyed goiter gazelle is named "winky". She lost her eye when she was young to an eye infection and as you can tell has done quite well for herself. Also the two rhinos you have pictured are Mudder and Mahjuba. They are southern white rhinos, in fact part of the original girls that helped get the their species numbers to the point they are at now. You are fortunate to have a great picture of Nola are Northern White Rhino she is the one getting ready to cause some trouble with one of the horticulturists doing some tree trimmings, lucky for him one of the keepers is there to probably give her some love. Nola is very approachable and often seen getting rub downs by her keepers.
Your day at the park was beautifully captured.
Dear Zoogirl, I LOVE your comment!!
Thank you so much for the info about those lovely animals.
My boyfriend and I had so much fun at the Wild Animal Park that day.
It was definitely the highlight of our San Diego trip.
We will visit the zoo again very soon!