Day Trip – The Wilds

Today, June 18. we traveled across Ohio to the Zanesville area, where we visited the Wilds. This place is a beautiful animal sanctuary. It includes many animals that are not native to Ohio or the USA. In fact, the only American wild animals that I noticed were Buffalo. There were whole herds of Buffalo. There were also a number of African animals including wild horses, Cheetahs and many others. One beauty of this place is that they are reproducing and continuing the species! Some may even eventually be placed back in their homelands.

I will show a number of photos without attempting to name them, because I know I’ll be wrong in many, maybe most, cases. I do know Buffalo (because I lived near their homeland of Custer, SD) and Cheetah, because I have seen them in zoos.

This photo shows an Ostrich but this wasn’t really my purpose, here. There were two kinds of transportation through the park. One was on open bus type vehicle as seen here behind us. And the other was enclosed. Both had disadvantages – the open vehicle was subject to heat and rain. The enclosed vehicle avoided this because it was enclosed and air conditioned. Unfortunately, our A/C generated a lot of moisture which rained down on those of us in the rear of the bus. A huge disadvantage for the enclosed bus was restriction of shooting photography through reflective windows. You may be able to detect some of this on my photos, here.

This is an up close and personal view of an ostrich. They liked our bus – it appears that they think we are their food or perhaps we’re bringing food!

I was also interested in the buffalo/bison. There was a huge herd of them on the hillside! But they were very mangy in appearance. Our guide was very knowledgeable and explained that they are in the process of shedding their winter coats. So, there is a lot of loose hanging fur. I especially wanted to include the buffalo photo because, our next YAH Luncheon will feature Buffalo Bill Cody (aka; Stephen Hollen) who will act the part and tell Wild West Stories. Buffalo Bill got his fame and name by shooting about 1600 buffalo in a short time period to provide meat for the railroad workers who were opening the west.

It also appears that this is the mating season for the deer. This one looks terrible to us but he apparently thinks he’s attractive to the females. He is also wearing his “cologne”! It must be date night!

This is a photo of our group from inside the bus.

Of course, we took time to eat a late lunch before returning to Dayton. Fortunately, the day was pretty much dry, until our ride home.

Lisa arranged to purchase nice boxed lunches from DLM for our meals.

I would happily recommend that any one visit The Wilds. We will probably take our grandkids some time. But, I would recommend using the open buses, if you can endure the heat and there is no threat of rain.