billsamuels Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
jdc562 wrote:
Safari West is located in Santa Rosa, Northern California. It describes itself as "An authentic African adventure" where you can "see these beautiful animals in their natural habitat" in the "heart of California's wine country." This is a long ways from the habitats of animals native to Sub-Saharan Africa. That should tell you a lot right there. The photos of Safari West show vehicles driving through a park with some species of large mammalian African herbivores, but no predators. (Some cheetahs and hyenas are maintained separately.) Understandable, but "authentic"? Does it deserve the title "wildlife preserve"? Part of the answer depends on how Safari West obtained their animals. This is a critical ethical question asked many times before on FM when FMers recognised posing "wild" animals as the domesticated individuals in the captivity of tourist attractions. If the "preserve" is obtaining their animals from stock captured in Africa, the place is probably the opposite of a "wildlife preserve." For every captured animal that reaches a "preserve" in the U.S., others are maimed and killed in the process of capture, caging, feeding, and transport to the breeders or the trip to the "preserve."
For the sake of the animals and true "wildlife preservation," you should understand the consequences of encouraging such places before you pay them $100's to $1000's to continue their activities. When you ask, "If any fellow FMers have been to this place?" you should also be asking if any FMers would even patronize such a place?...Show more →
Okay, I understand what you're saying, but I've belong to the Sierra Club since I was 15 and have participated in a group they have called Inner-City Outings, taking inner-city kids out backpacking for the first time. Why do we do this? Because these kids will be the NEXT generation of VOTERS and they'll be the next generation of BACKPACKERS and people who love the outdoors IF and only if they were taken out of the inner-city and taken outdoors to the wilderness. Hopefully, they'll vote for people who represent preserving the outdoors and Acts that preserve land for outdoor recreation instead of developement.
What does this have to do with Safari West? A lot! Kids are taken here by their parents and experience a little of Africa, learn a lot about these wild animals, and hopefully they will have an interest in helping to preserve these wild animals themselves, and maybe even go to Africa as adults, gaining more energy to support their survival after seeing their home for themselves!!!
And if you read the story on how Safari West got started, it wasn't at all related to doing a show, but rather an international effort to get endangered animals OUT of Africa so that their genetics were safe and preserved in case they became extinct in Africa. All of the animals at Safari West are part of a breeding program, and before they opened it up to the public (never their original intentions), they only opened it up to school field trips. It was when the government cut back on their budget (some anti-outdoorsman got into politics) that they had to find another way to support themselves that they went from just breeding and education to breeding, education, and recreation/education as well.
I'm a hard-core environmentalist, but a realist! Most of the kids that come to this type of place have money because it's expensive to go. Therefore, these are the kids that can be influenced the most to enjoy wildlife and then one day, vote for wildlife. And certainly give donations to help support wildlife, whether it's a donation to Safari West, or to a grass-roots effort in Africa.
|