Wild Animal Park

THE first thing that came to mind about this, "Really they have plants there?" I had never been to the park as I have lived in San Diego for the most of my life. I was excited to see the new things with the animals and yes of course the plants. I arrived a little late, past 10:00 hoping that everyone would go in a little later, just because thats how things normally happen. I remember getting a text message saying "hurry up" as I was waiting in line wondering if I had to pay for parking. Finally upon arrival, we still waited for an additional 15 minutes for others to arrive. Once everyone was there, we took a path towards the native plant selection. Our guide, Maren, took us on a side trip, over to the elephants, where a female was in labor, and had been in labor for several days. Surprisingly, not too many people were around, I'm guessing they thought the same as me, if it's been a couple of days, what are the odds that it will happen now. Funny enough, I found out a week and a half later, she had the baby at least a week after our visit.

As we faced the garden, Maren had given us a semi brief summary about why the garden was created. She talked about it was to help educate us about what the native plants because we are taught many different things that do not coincide with the natives. Also she had explained about how these plants were very important resources for the natives in San Diego. As we finally walked inside and along the trail, Maren had explained some plants and pointed them out and their uses. About halfway through the trail, as I and some other students had stopped taking pictures, we had noticed a man who was following us. Unsure at the time, we thought he was a student from the other class, or that he was some man trying to get more information about the plants. Little did we know that this man was another worker, Bryan. He shared about the issues that they deal with regarding the plants, such as the San Diego fires and our humidity during the summers. He also explained that the native plants were much more tolerant against the fires but because of the other non-native plants brought in for the animals they can become a larger problem.

After our lesson about some history about the plants and those in its surroundings, we were released to take pictures of what we wanted and able to go on out our own pace. This was good in the fun of just looking around without having to worry about others hurrying me around or feeling as if I needed to catch up. The experience was a fun trip. Afterwards I went on to look at the animal exhibits and take advantage of my first time at the park.