A Safari in Your Own Backyard

A visit to the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park is now more intimate and tons more fun with new experiences offered this year.

The new "Journey Into Africa" tour aboard "The African Express," an open-air soft-wheeled vehicle inspired by the legendary safari trains of Africa, replaces the historic Wgasa Bush Line Railway tour after 35 years in service. The new experience brings visitors to eyelevel with animals such as white rhinoceros, giraffes, Cape buffalo, Roosevelt's gazelles, African crowned cranes and more. The African Express runs on bio-diesel, a clean burning alternative fuel made from renewable resources, as it travels 2.5 miles around the perimeter of the Wild Animal Park's expansive African field enclosures totaling 213 acres.

In 1969, the Society began construction on a facility that was solely meant to be a propagation center for the San Diego Zoo. This San Pasqual Valley facility generated so much public interest that in 1972 the Society decided to open the propagation center to the public, now known as the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. More than 35 years later, the Wild Animal Park is recognized around the world for its successes in breeding many rare and endangered species.  The Park has reintroduced some animals back into their native habitats including the California condor and the Przewalski's horse.