USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 13 - San Diego

 Ever since Kristine was a kid she had been wanting to visit San Diego Zoo. The zoo is famous for its open-air and cage-free habitats as well as its extensive work on wildlife conservation. It houses over 12,000 animals over 680 species in a 100 acre zoo.

So of course we had to make sure that we made it for a visit. San Diego sits about 120miles ( ¨200km) south of Los Angeles and is about a 2 hour drive. We aimed to make it to the zoo for opening time, so it was another early start.

We arrived at the zoo around 9am and found a carpark. Kristine had been suffering some knee pain so was a little limited in her speed at walking around the park, so we decided to split up. Tara, Brett and Tomas went off together and I stayed with Kris, Alana and Cam.

We all started together taking the bus tour through the zoo to get our bearings and then met up for lunch at one of the zoo's diners. It was a great day despite the temperatures of around 36C and the zoo was impressive.

I think the easiest way to capture it is to just dump a few pictures with some stories and details:

The story of the creation of the Zoo is captured in the two pictures above. Dr Harry M Wegeforth heard a lion roar at the Panama-California Exposition and is quoted as saying "Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a zoo in San Diego? I believe I'll build one."

He then founded the Zoological Society of San Diego in 1916 and started his collection with the animals left behind from the exposition as well as some from a closed amusement park. The City of Sand Diego was listed as owner of all of the animals.

The bus ride is included in the cost of the ticket and covers around 75% of the park:

Once we finished the bus tour, we picked a direction and ended up in Koalifonia, the Australia Outback exhibit, which housed the only albino koala born in captivity as well as the largest number of koalas outside Australia (40).

As we entered the area, we were greeted by the familiar calls of kookaburras. The zoo is home to wallabies, bettongs, tree-kangaroos, ringtail possums, echidnas as well as a number of birds. In additional it houses Tasmania devils as part of the effort to protect the devils from an aggressive cancer that is decimating numbers in the wild.

Masked Lapwing

Kookaburra

What Aussie section would be complete without beer?

From here we split up, so I will capture the zones, rather than the specific order we viewed the zoo in:

Lost Forest:

Hippos, Okapi

Steller's Sea Eagle - one of the largest raptors in the world.

Harpy Eagle

We also watched the Spotted-necked otters playing:

There were three hippopotami on display: Funani (the dominant female), Aaliyah (Funani's daughter, born 2020) and Jahi (a male).

While we watched, Funani relaxed on a rock until Aaliyah deliberately crashed into her, knocking her off.

Hippos

Aaliyah at the glass and Funani in the background

Jahi

Funani

Aaliyah

The hippos also have Tigerfish in their enclosure to assist with water filtration. After we met up with Tara we joked about how all of our photos were photobombed by this tigerfish and then she showed me her photos from earlier in the day with the exact same fish.

Tigerfish

Schmidt's Red-Tailed Guenon

Visayan warty pig - once of the rarest pigs in the world

Kirk's Dik-Dik

Allen's Swamp Monkeys

Okapi

Asian Passage - Denny Sanford Panda Ridge:

Pandas: Xin Bao and Yun Chuan, Red Panda

Red Panda

Elephant Odyssey:

Elephants, Giant Anteater

Elephant playing with a sprinkler

Blocked it!

Dromedary Camel

Short Faced Bear Statue

Giant Sloth Statue

Californian Condor

Grizzly Bear

Patagonian Mara

Capybara

Jaguar - a male named Guapo

The warning at the lion enclosure was a bit of a worry:

But it wasn't needed as the heat seems to have gotten to the lion and lioness:

The next animal in Elephant Odyssey was the Chacoan Peccary, which was originally thought to be extinct before being discovered in South America in 1971. The look like wild pigs but are are a completely different family of animal. They have a snout and tusks, but their tusks point straight down and they are immune to the spikes of cacti which are their main food source:

Monkey Trails:
Monkeys such as Mandrill & Capuchin, Pygmy Hippo, West African Crocodiles and Carnivorous Plants

Mandrill

A world-class mandrill impersonator

Carnivorous Plant Greenhouse

This branch in the carnivorous plants section was so dangerous it needed to be chained up

Aviaries:
Owens - Tropical Birds

Scripps - Afridan Birds

Parker - South American Birds

Nicobar Pigeon

Red-Breasted Geese (on rocks in middle), Silver Teal (big ducks in middle), White Cheeked Pintails (in water)

Harlequin Ducks

Green Wood Hoopoe

Urban Jungle:

Masai Giraffes, Gazelles, Flamingos, Zebra, Rhinoceros, Binturong, Fennec Foxes, Cheetahs, Porcupines

Flamingos

Rhino

Zebra and Somali Wild Ass

White-Nosed Coati

Polar Bear Plunge:

Polar Bears, Reindeer, Arctic Foxes, Eurasian Lynx

One of the reasons we split up is Brett and Tom were super keen to see the Polar Bears and were worried that they wouldn't be out after the early morning. They were super disappointed when they arrived and the bears were all inside, but they checked again a few minutes later and caught the polar bears - Chinook and Tatqiq.

Some sort of seal thing?

Wildlife Exporer's Basecamp:

Naked Mole Rats, Sloths, Caracels, Ocelots, Play Areas

Caracal (watching the racoon next door...)

Racoon

Getting nails cut - the trainer would place food up top so the racoon would reach up and she could cut it's claws

Spineless Marvels:

Insects and invertebrates

Giant African Millipede

Giant Cave Cockroach

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach

Giant Stick Insect

Giant Spiny Stick Insect

Pink Katydids

Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers

Orchard Mantis

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

Reptile Walk:

Turtles, Tortoises, Lizards, Frogs, Snakes, Chinese Alligator, Reptile House

Boa Constrictor

Fijian Crested Iguana

Gorilla Tropics:

Gorillas

Sun Bear Forest:

Sunbears, Langurs, Gibbons, Aye-Ayes

Francois' Langur

Tiger Trail:

Tigers, Tapir

Malayan Tapir

Tiger

Slender-Snouted Crocodile

Africa Rocks:

African Penguins, Leopards, Vervet Monkeys, Lemur, Gelada

Hamadryas Baboons

Hamadryas Baboon

Meercats

African Penguins (also known as Jackass Penguins - because of the noise they make, not their behaviour...)

There were also native birds that were present in some of the open enclosures, such as this Great Egret which snuck into the penguin beach:

and this fox squirrel (an invasive species):

but back to the actual zoo animals:

Red River Hogs

We entered the Leopard section looking for the leopards, but didn't see any until we turned around and saw them watching from the over head skywalk between enclosures:

Trumpeter Hornbill

Von der Decken's Hornbill

Mediterranean Pond Turtle

Skyfari

The San Diego Zoo also has a gonola ride named Skyfari. It was built in 1969 and is a max of 57.6m above the ground and 1.2km long. The ticket is included in the zoo entry fee.

California Tower built for the 1916 Panama-California Exposition

Bashor Bridge

In order to speed up transit through the park the Bashor bridge was built in 2017 to connect Elephant Odyssey to Panda Ridge/Lost Forest. It is named in honour of veteran Jim Bashor and his wife Dianne who donated multi-million dollars to the park for the bridge and free entry for active-duty military.

Plants

In addition to the animals, San Diego Zoo is also home to a number of plants, some of which are extinct or endangered in the wild.

Pink Hibiscus

Madagascar Ocotillo

Crown of Thorns

Kangaroo Paw

Brazilian Red Cloak

Pygmy Sundews

White Hibiscus

Tropical Hibiscus "Over the Rainbow"

Chinese Hibiscus

Hibiscus mutabilis,

Torch Ginger

Carrion Flower

San Marcos Hibiscus

Lavender Star Flower

Triangle Palm

Water Lily

Wood's Cycad - Extinct in the wild

Cycad

Unleased Cycad

Morton Bay Fig

Bismarck Palm

Brighamia insignis, aka Hawaiian Palm or Cabbage on a Stick

Coral Aloe

 Pequi tree

One of the key plants of the zoo is the big fig tree. The tree is a Strangler Fig that is 220 tonnes and 80 foot tall and was initially located in the area where the zoo wanted to install the monkey trail. In 2002 the tree needed to be moved 240 feet to its new location.  As can be expected, moving a 220 tonne tree without killing it was a huge task and cost $250,000 and five days. The root system was pruned and then wrapped in a wooden box, then steel beams were threaded under the root box and hydraulic gantry jacks were used to raise it. A temporary steel rail track was created and the tree was rolled on heavy duty rail dollies to its new location, taking 5 days to move the 240 feet - it was moved slowly to avoid toppling which would have been catastrophic to the tree and the surrounding area. When the tree reached the new area it was lowered into a pre-dug 20 foot deep hole and replanted. The tree survived and is now a fixture in its new location:

As an addition, we decided to use the animal status guide as a measure of how much danger the boys were in for annoying Alana. They were threatened for most of the trip, and took some brief trips into endangered:

USS MIDWAY

After finishing up at the zoo, we took a quick detour down to the shoreline to see the USS Midway (CV-41) a retired aircraft carrier that is now a museum. She was commissioned eight days after the end of World War II (10th Sep 1945) and was the largest warship in the world until 1955 and the first US ship that was too big to navigate the Panama Canal. 

She served for 47 years in wars such as Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm (Persian Gulf) before being decommissioned in 1992.

She is 968 feet long, powered by 12 oil fired boilers which produce 212,000 horsepower and can travel speeds of 33 knots. She was crewed with over 4,000 sailors and 130 planes.

By now it was starting to get late and we had a two hour drive home, so we set off back to the apartment. The trip wasn't totally boring though:

Chevrolet Corvette  Z06 (C8 Generation)

Nice Sunset

Reactor Containment domes for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), closed in 2013

Traffic

This raised questions - is it a pretend city, a pretend museum or a museum of pretend city children? (it's a screen-free roleplay museum for kids to act out occupations)

As it was coming up to Halloween we saw lots of these pumpkin patches dressed up for faires