We celebrated Lynda's birthday on Friday going to Safari Wilderness in Lakeland Florida. It is not a zoo or theme park. It is a 260 acre multi habitat preserve.
The colony of guinea pigs at the bottom of the picture. The structures being built behind the truck are for overnight tent camping experiences.
Our first animal to encounter was part of the boarder control. The grounds are double fenced. The double fence system keep animals in and native animals out, like coyotes. Between the fences some animals are allowed to roam to help keep the grass down between the fences. This was a donkey zebra.
A colony of lemurs. They can not swim.
Some warthogs.
A cheetah.
A herd of zebra. One advantage of taking this tour we went off the road and close to the animals.
A baby zebra. Their strips turn black as the zebra ages, they are brown when born.
Our next animal tht came up to us was this beautiful creature ( I forgot what it is, It looks like a deer but I don't think that was what it was.) The antlers were like velvet.
A llama wondered over.
Another stop at the Defassa Waterbuck ( and another llama)
I tried to feed them but wasn't real successful getting it in their mouth/ I think we dropped most of the food.
It was a very private tour just my sister and me. Our guide Art was very friendly and open to any question and shared a lot of information. There was no set script. He often threw food out to the animals and even hand feed some. We also had food to feed and at times encouraged to feed and touch.
The ostriches were amazing. In the Asia portion of the preserve there was a mother and her three babies that were almost full grown. They were very pesty, and aggressive. they tagged team to steal the food out of the bucket. One actually ran along aside of the bus when we left the area. They can run 40 miles an hour. We were not going that fast. Art said if they all behaved like this he wouldn't work here.
These are two ostrich eggs, they were not fertile and were about a year old. Art stood on them to show how thick and hard the shell of their egg is. An ostrich is born with a special egg tooth to break out of the shell. He loses the tooth after it hatches. We got to hold the egg, it felt like it was made out of marble.
Beautiful antlers.
Lynda feeding a llama.
We were given all the names of the animals and facts about them, I forgot them all.
This animal had been kicked out of his heard by a younger male. These animals let him stay with them. Young male zebras will also be kicked out of the herd, but they form a bachelor herd of zebras.
Pot bellied pigs.
The camels are the only animals with names, for they are used to give tours.
There is an area for native African animals and an area for Asian. There are fences all along that Art had to open and close the gates.
It was fun feeding them.
When we ended our tour Franklin, the tortoise was out of his house.
The tour took about two hours, lots of time to take pictures, learn information and enjoy the animals. The day was perfect, not too hot and taking the vehicle tour made it a little extra special and fun for Lynda's birthday.
