Wildlife Safari
Just three hours south of Portland taking I-5 to exit 119 in Winston Or, there is a wildlife safari that consists of a 600-acre drive-thru animal park. Many species of rare and endangered animals call this park their home, making the Wildlife Safari truly more than just a zoo experience.
Saving rare and endangered species from all around the world was the dream and vision of Frank Hart. 50 years after its opening in 1972 Wildlife Safari has grown to become an internationally recognized non-profit, that is dedicated to conservation and education.
Drive Through Safari
At the park, you get a chance to escape to the wild, where you are captive and the animals are the free ones! You enter first on an African Safari, where you can get up close with animals from halfway across the world. If they don't first get close to you, ostriches love to stick their heads through your open windows to see if you have anything for them to take. The predators do have their own enclosure, to keep them from getting too close to your car. Next, you go through the Americas getting to see bears, bison, and elk oh my! When going back around the loop you get to get a second look at Africa, seeing the elephants and hippos in their respective habitats. Then you can drive through Asia where you will have hungry emu, and deer trying to see if you were nice enough to get a food cup when entering. Finally, you end your safari by seeing the Sumatran tigers that mostly are sitting in the sun but just like your average house cat if you catch them in the mood you can see them actually playing. There are also the cheetahs that are part of the Wildlife Safari's top cheetah breeding program. Boasting one of the top cheetah breeding research centers on Earth and is the number one cheetah breeding facility outside of Africa. 235 cheetahs have been born at the park since 1972, these cheetahs are sent to zoos all over the world to help add new genetics to the parks.
Free Safari Village
The safari village has a lot to offer for all ages. You can easily spend hours walking around looking at all the different animals. We always bring our dog with us for this is over a three-hour drive from where we are, so we drop her off in the free day kennels. it's only $5 for a lock if you don't already have one and it's all covered for them and there are water dishes for them.
As soon as you walk into the village you are welcomed by the cheetah spot, where they usually have a younger cat in there with their companion dog. The cheetahs that grow up without siblings are usually given a dog to grow up with since they are such social animals.
Every spot you go after this around the village you will be submerged into a new experience. From the animal rotunda to walking around Australia with emus and wallabies, even getting to meet a kookaburra. You can extend your experiences with a train and or camel ride. When a show is going on in the safari dome you can meet and learn about the ambassador animals that help teach all the things the safari does!
Animal Encounters
They have a bunch of encounters available in the park, starting at 8 am on weekends with a Rhino adventure you can go to the barn and see them eat, and possibly get to pet them too! (As of now we have not done this one it was new when we went last but we will hopefully next time.) For this encounter they suggest booking at least a few days in advance to make sure you can get in. Every day they do offer other encounters that you don't have to book in advance, but you do need to book in the guest service center inside the gift shop or call to book the day of. There are a lot of encounters to choose from always check online or in the center to see if there are any new ones. We have done a few of them and enjoyed learning and experiencing all of them! They have recently added more I will add them as we get a chance to do them!
We so far have gotten the chance to do the giraffe feeding where you get to go into a lifted truck and feed the animals some snacks. But warning their long purple tongues can get quite slimy! They are quite gentle though with taking the snacks from you, unlike the giraffes we meet in Africa, which would headbutt you if you weren't actively feeding them. Another one we did is the lion feeding, you get to get close to the fence and watch as the trainer feeds them pieces of raw meat on a stick. It's only with the females and the girls don't fight over who's being fed. The trainer will show you how they do tricks and behaviors to help with veterinary care. We also did the cheetah photo encounter, where you get to meet up with the cheetah trainers who have the cat on two leads. In this encounter, you get to learn all about the breeding program they take such success with, and at the end get pictures with the world's fastest animal with no fences between.
Our favorite one was the elephant encounter with the African elephants, George was our favorite and the one we personally had the most connection to. He was 10 feet tall and would love to show off in front of crowds playing his harmonica. We went and saw George up close for the first time almost a year before my sister passed away. She loved elephants more than anything and wouldn't stop smiling after this all day! After being close up with George we got personal paintings done from one of the female elephants Valorie. you get to choose your colors and they paint on the size of canvas you wish to get. Very shortly after my sister's passing, we went back to the wildlife safari, and we had another encounter with George. Before going I emailed the park asking if he would be the one doing the encounter that weekend and explained why we wanted to see him. When we got there we were told to go to the back of the line, and when it came to our turn we were welcomed to spend as much time with him as we wanted! We got to pet him and spend some quality time getting to know him! After this, the team surprised us even more by giving us a Christmas ornament that George painted as well as an "elephant kiss" painting that is done by painting the bottom of the elephant's trunk and they press it against the canvas. Three years later when we went back (we usually go at least once a year) we learned why we hadn't gotten to see George the last couple of times we just did the drive-through. He passed away in November of 2020 at the age of 33.
