![]() “Animal keepers, construction, maintenance, we were all one big cohesive team. “One of the best things about the early years of park was that everybody was pretty much on the same page,” he said. The crew worked 8 hours a day, six days a week, but nobody wanted a day off because the experience was so interesting, Massena said. “We put down miles, and it was all done by hand. “They decided to basically put chicken wire around the perimeter fence so predators like coyotes couldn’t get through,” he said. Massena said the park was looking for a group of people who work hard and do just about anything, including building fences. And all of us in the early days were really, really energetic about that kind of thing.” “Every kind of animal husbandry program that you could think of to make yourself more knowledgeable, more informed on care of the animals. “The Zoological Society put together a course for keepers to go through,” he said. Instead, his studies shifted to night classes at the San Diego Zoo after long days preparing the new park. Intrigued, he applied for and was hired as one of the first dozen or so animal keepers at the park, leaving behind his earlier plan of being a school teacher. Lakeside resident Richard Massena, 72, was a San Diego State University student at the time and working part time at the San Diego Zoo when he heard about plans for a new type of zoo. Proposition B, the City of San Diego Wild Animal Park Recreational and Education Facilities Bond Proposal, passed with 75.9 percent of the vote in November 1970, the largest margin of support in the city’s history. Fencing and moats were created with a private grant, and in 1970 three species of hoofed animals - a South African sable antelope, greater kudu and gemsbok - arrived.īuilding the actual park would take a $6 million bond measure, which Bieler campaigned for with Joan Embery, the Zoo ambassador who became famous for her many appearance with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. ![]() Habitats and animal populations were declining, and zoos were seen as part of the problem because of the practice of capturing wildlife.Ĭharles Schroeder, director of the San Diego Zoo at the time, saw an opportunity for a second zoo where animals could breed in North County.Ĭharles Faust, the Zoo’s designer, had traveled to Africa and returned with drawings of villages to shape the new park’s look. The San Diego Zoo began in 1916 with the creation of the Zoological Society of San Diego by Harry Wegeforth and his brother, Paul, who together thought it would be a good idea to display the lions and other animals that had been brought to the city for the 1915-16 Panama-California World Exposition in what now is Balboa Park.Īs recalled in “Heart of the Zoo,” the biography of San Diego Zoo Director Chuck Bieler by Kathi Diamant, the idea of Safari Park began with changing attitudes about zoos in the 1960s. (Photo courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. ![]()
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