Image of the Week: Curious Giraffe

This week's image comes from San Diego's Wild Animal park taken in 2006.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park Pictures

I've got some pictures to share with you today of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, or formerly known as the San Diego Wild Animal Park as it was called during the time of my visit (2006). The other major change was that the zoo formerly operated a monorail line, the Wgasa Bush Line, which ran through the Wild Animal Park. The Monorail line has been retired, partially due to high maintenance costs, and in March 2007 the new Journey into Africa attraction opened. 

More pictures coming soon!

It's Official: Wild Animal Park to Become Safari Park

I was hoping this was still just a rumor at this point but it appears that it's written in stone now.

The San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park will soon be renamed to help visitors better distinguish it from the zoo in Balboa Park and to finally lose that terrible acronym: WAP. The new name: San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Read the full article here.

San Diego Wild Animal Park Considering a Name Change

This has to be one of the most ill conceived ideas I’ve ever heard of. According to recent rumors, the famous San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park may be preparing to change the name of the park itself to “San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park” along with a marketing tagline of “Wild at Heart”.
    On top of being one of the lamest sounding names I’ve ever heard, the very idea of changing the name of the very well known Wild Animal Park is just plain dumb to even suggest. Why the change? According to our source the marketing types want to change the focus of the park away from the animals (really?!) and focus more on the “rides” and “adventures” being offered.
    Digging a little deeper, I did uncover that the San Diego Zoo did in fact just register the SanDiegoZooSafariPark.com domain address on July 8, 2010, prepaying it for the next ten years. Sigh...this park is just slipping and sliding down into a deep dark hole that they’ll never get out of. It all started going downhill I think when they closed the popular (and free) Wgasa Bush Line tour around the park and replaced it with a bunch of upcharge jeep tours. That's the first big mistake right there, removing the tour line. That was the whole point of visiting the park. Now it's just a zoo. oh wait, you cn still do a jeep tour- for $150/person.
    I’ve been sent more confirmations about the name change plans in place for the Wild Animal Park. Right now management’s plans are to slowly roll out the name bit by bit to the public, making the name change final and complete by Spring 2011. According to those who’s already seen the new “Safari Park” logo, they describe it as looking like something a small child drew up in 5 minutes with crayons… and hardly professional nor giving the respect this famous animal attraction deserves.
    You know, if management there just has their heart set on adding the name “Safari” to the park, why not just make a minor change and call it “Wild Animal Safari” instead of “Safari Park”. The later just sounds so generic… like one of those bargain bin video game zoo simulations that Wal-Mart couldn’t sell for full price and is now begging people to take off their hands for $2.99 instead. Is that what they really want for the Wild Animal Park?
    The funny thing is that when Disney went to build the Animal Kingdom park in Florida, they based a lot of ideas for it on the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. They even went so far as to originally name it as Wild Animal Kingdom because they felt the name had so much impact. The threat of a possible trademark lawsuit due to it sounding too similar to the old “Mutal of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” TV show forced Disney to drop the “Wild” part of the name. It just seems daft that the San Diego Zoo is so eager to give that name up now after using it for close to 40 years.
    Go here to vote and tell them how much you dislike this plan!

San Diego Wild Animal Park expands ‘Journey Into Africa’ tour

Construction is winding down and animals are beginning to populate four new habitats along the “Journey Into Africa” tram tour at San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park.
The new African animal exhibits have been added to the first third of the 30-minute tour as part of a $4-million expansion.
Among the additions:
* More than 150 flamingos have moved into a new five-acre exhibit with a pond and a beach.
* Soemmering’s gazelles and yellow-backed duikers (medium-sized antelope) are now living in the half-acre hillside exhibit. Southern steenboks (small antelope) are expected to move in later this week.
* Wattled cranes, yellow-billed storks and Egyptian geese were recently relocated to a half-acre marsh exhibit. Lappet-faced vultures and Ruppell’s vultures will join them soon.
* Somali wild asses and Barbary sheep will take up residence in a five-acre rocky desert exhibit beginning in April.

http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/san-diego-wild-anima-6639/