Safari Park Life Update

My new job at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is going wonderfully! As a photo safari tour guide, I lead two or three tours a day for guests. These are the only tours in the Park that actually go into the animals' exhibits. It's like being on a shark dive: the animals are free-roaming and the people are in a cage (or truck). The tours are 1.5-3.5 hours, depending on the group. The Park has five giant field exhibits that we go into on any given tour: three in Africa and two in Asia. And I'm talking giant field exhibits. The largest is over 60 acres...Disneyland is only 80 acres! The entire Park is 1800 acres. This means I never get bored. There is always something new to see or talk about.

I have three favorite parts of my job (it's hard to pick just three!). One: feeding the greater one-horned rhinos. Rhinos are incredibly gentle, unless they are directly threatened. I love bonding with Bhopu or Tanaya while I give them apples, and seeing baby Parvesh hang out under his mom's legs while she eats. Two: seeing all the brand-new babies! This is baby season at the Park, so I've gotten to see babies take their first steps. Three: watching a guest's face light up when I give them some suggestions about how to save animals. I love being able to tell that a guest is going to go home and actually use reusable bags or save water. It feels so good to be making a difference!

One of the most challenging parts of my job is learning up-to-date information from the Park to tell guests (the Zoo and Park are huge so it can be hard to keep up)! It's also difficult to keep teenagers motivated and off of their cell phones. And it's tough to stay hydrated and keep my voice in 100 degree weather!

I also get asked some pretty funky questions as a tour guide. Some of my favorites:

• Why are the rhinos in the field with all the other animals? Won't they eat the gazelles?
• Nope! Rhinos are vegetarians. They eat grass, and some will eat leaves, aquatic plants, and fruit too.
• Do the animals ever try to escape?
• The animals in the Park are incredibly happy. We know this because they are having babies! Upset animals don't breed. The Safari Park is like Club Med for animals: they get free food, free health care, and they are safe from predators. In fact, tons of native Californian wildlife species choose to make their homes in the Safari Park exhibits for the same reasons!
• Ewww!! Why are the giraffes so slobbery?
• That viscous saliva actually helps protect their tongues from the thorny acacia trees they eat out of in the wild.
• What do you do with all of the babies born at the Safari Park?
• There is actually a database online for animals, like Match.com or OkCupid. The curator and keepers enter each animal's genetic information, parents, age, and weight into the database. This allows zoos all over North America to trade animals to make efficient use of exhibit space and create new breeding herds.
• How do the keepers clean up all the poop in a 60-acre exhibit?
• They use shovels, bulldozers, and a golf-ball picker-upper that's been specially adapted to pick up poop!

The Safari Park is a ton of fun and unlike any other zoo in the world. If you are ever in San Diego, come visit!