Safari Park

We've checked another thing off our OC Bucket List!  We went to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  Justin got me a membership to the San Diego Zoo for Valentine's Day last year so we've gotten to go several times over the year but this was the first time going to the Safari Park.  Here they have large exhibits with multiple types of animals living together to mimic the wild.  You can walk around the park or take a "safari" tour into the largest exhibit.  You can even doing a flying safari on a zipline. 

Like the zoo, this park participates in amazing breeding efforts to help endangered species.  That means seeing lots of babies!  Like this mother and 5 month old baby gorilla...

And dad playing in a box...

There were also a bunch of baby elephants!  This little guy was running around chasing deer in his pen.  Then he got scared and all of the adults ran to him to comfort him.  So sweet!

They also have special activities like the Cheetah Run, where you can see cheetahs hit their top speeds of 70 mph down a track.  The cheetah has a large dog friend that goes with it to help it feel safe.

At the end of its run, the cheetah got a nice bowl of raw meat.  That helped us feel safe, since it probably wasn't worth it to the cheetah to chase us if there was stationary food.

Finally there's the tigers.  Cause I love them.  One of the ran off when I pulled out my camera.  I guess he was shy.  That weird grey line is one of the bars of the fence - another helpful safety measure, especially since this one didn't have a bowl of meat...