Following becoming closed owing to tornado destruction, Wild Animal Safari reopened Saturday
Published 4:06 pm Saturday, April 15, 2023
By Charlotte Reames
Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain welcomed visitors back on Saturday right after 3 months of tornado clean up-up from the March 26 storm.
Zookeeper Katie Harrison and Parks The united states CEO Lisa Brady announced the reopening of the travel-by part of the park all through a press convention.
“We’re thrilled to see most people once again. We’re actually enthusiastic about rebuilding,” Harrison claimed during the press meeting.
Saturday marks the to start with stage of the park’s reopening. For the duration of this section, friends who buy a ticket on-line and be part of the mailing record will receive a return ticket for any weekday from June 6 to the conclusion of September.
Guests packed up in safari vehicles to see the animals.
“The park animals are almost certainly equally or much more so fired up. They actually count on Spring Crack for plenty of company to occur via and feed them,” Brady explained for the duration of the press conference. “So they’ll be completely ready.”
H2o Buffalo, giraffes, bison, zebras and emus greeted their initial friends in 20 days.
“Our youngsters love the film Madagascar. So we figured we could see some of the animals from the movie we’ve been watching,” said Katelyn King.
King and her husband, Forrest, drove all the way to the Wild Animal Safari from McDonough. They hadn’t frequented considering the fact that their kids ended up born and hoped to present their young children the park for the initial time.
“We’re searching ahead to looking at our kids’ reaction. Hopefully, an animal sticks their head in,” King reported.
Heidi McAllister and her loved ones traveled from Paulding County, to camp at the Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park. They go to the Wild Animal Safari whenever they arrive to the place.
McAllister stated they arrived out on Saturday to aid the reopening.
“We like coming in this article, and it’s a little something that our granddaughter enjoys,” McAllister claimed. “We introduced some new mates together this time.”
Paula and Larry Boone brought their Campers and Dancers team to visit the park for their once-a-year camping vacation.
“I dislike the devastation that the park has experienced, but I’m so grateful that they are again up,” Paula Boone mentioned.
The team of 29 campers vacation all over Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida each and every yr. They planned the trip a thirty day period in progress and ended up thankful to see it back again open.
“They’ve accomplished a fantastic career of placing it all again alongside one another,” said Larry Boone.
Throughout the thoroughly clean-up soon after the March 26 twister, maintenance crews of more than 100 eradicated above 4,500 trees from the place.
“The magnitude of tree slide was just remarkable,” Brady explained.
The staff worked about 900 hours on clearing the park of twister debris.
“I’m really grateful yet again for our servicing staff, our zookeepers, all of our team right here, most people who has occur to assistance out,” Harrison explained.
The following phase will concentrate on partially reopening the walkabout part of the park in late Might. Brady and McAllister introduced that the park will introduce two new exhibits through this phase.
“We’re heading to rebuild even much better than we were in advance of,” Harrison stated.
An aviary enclosure will house macaws and budgie parrots. Company will have an area to feed the budgie parrots. The other new exhibit will function ring-tailed Madagascan lemurs.
Brady explained the park staff is focusing on continuing conservation initiatives and animal habitats to boost the educational environment.
All of the do the job going on at the walkabout section won’t be concluded till up coming 12 months, but some of the walkabout section will open in the coming months.
This stage will include things like a renovated hyena exhibit and expanded tiger, wolf, singing pet dog habitats.
“The greatest factor people can do to assist is carry on to think about us, assist us, stick to us on social media, share our posts and appear and check out us,” Brady explained. “We cannot wait around to have folks back again in the gates.”
