I've only been one other time, about 5 years ago, and I remember thinking "Wow - this place is WILD! How do are they allowed to do all of this?!"
We went today with some friends, and, yup - still thinking the same thing I did 5 years ago.
It's 4 miles of a wilderness drive-through where you get to observe tons and tons of zoo animals in their "natural" habitat. They do have the wildcats in cages (in case you wondered), but OH MY. How did they get SOO many tigers and lions! And Ligers? Yes. They have them.
When you're done with the drive-through (that is fantastic, btw), you get to enjoy all of their petting zoos. They have a huge penned-in field full of goats, sheep, and pot-belly hogs that you can roam through, feed, and play in...then they have a whole separate penned-in part full of kangaroos - yes. Kangaroos. You just run around with them and play with them.
So TODAY:
When drive-up to pay, and after I give her the money, the lady goes
"After you're done driving through, our featured petting area has baby lions, ligers, and baboons you can all play with."
ME: "Okay..." Then I drive off.
Wait. Did she say we can just go play with baby lions, ligers, and baboons at our own risk??? What??!
Sure enough, after the drive-through - there they were. The Liger's cage was open (he shared it with the crazy monkeys) and we kept having to pick the little guy up and put him back in his cage. Really??
Then we saw the lion cubs in their cage. I hesitated to go in, found the lady and asked again, just to make sure.
ME: "So it's really okay for us to go in there and play with the lion cubs???"
LADY: "Yeah."
ME: "Are they mean??"
LADY (Hesitates...NOT GOOD!) "Well...they are getting older so just be careful...they're not completely cubs anymore..."
What??! Seriously...what does that mean??
ME: "Are their teeth sharp?"
LADY: "Well...(hesitates, again!) no, but they're jaws are SUPER strong."
Again - what in the world does that mean?!
So what do I do? I go in anyway. I am at this point, finding it hard to pass up on holding baby lions.
Verdict? They were fine. Super sweet and I never experienced the power of a lion's jaw (praise God).
Then we move over to the Liger/Monkey cage and we all go inside. I immediately start getting attacked by monkeys. I'm still not sure if they had a crush on me or were literally wanting to crush me...but one thing's for sure - I was the only one of all of us getting - what seemed to be - attacked by them!
We ended the experience with lunch at the picnic tables and play time with the kangaroos (which I don't have pictures of for some reason).
All in all, it was a fantastic morning, and I highly recommend the Gentry Safari - especially if you want to play with the lions, tigers, and the mixture of both (the Liger.).
As you noticed, there are no pictures of the baby lions of the Liger or the monkeys attacking me...they will come soon enough. Don't worry. I had my hands too full for a camera but Amanda got some pretty hilarious pictures of it. Will post soon :)
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