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| It's a zoo out there: Campers stay in canvas tents, including sell-out luxury ones with wood floors and queen-size beds, at
San Diego Zoo. Frank Kosa |
Roars and snores on sleepover safari
Zoo overnight camps let you wake up to the call of the wild, without having to go to Africa.
from the November 19, 2007 edition
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We toss our sleeping bags in the tent and hurry to a buffet of lamb, grilled vegetables and couscous. Matthew focuses his gustatory energies on the chocolate chip cookies. By now, the sun has cloaked the valley in luxuriant russet. For a few moments, there are just the animals, the land, and the sky – I feel mercifully distant from freeways, homework, and "Hannah Montana."
An enthusiastic guide summons everyone for a dusk stroll. We're now officially alone in the park – no one but us and the beasts. OK, some security staff too, but certainly not the safety of numbers you get during the day (the park receives 2 million visitors annually). This might seem absurd, considering that animals remain in the exact same enclosures at night as in the day, but there's a qualitatively different feeling in the dark. Quiet. Eerie. Closer to, well, the wild. Let's face it, it was no accident that Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde at night.
The walk is sort of a bedtime tour, although some creatures are just rising. We start with the lion camp. As we stand just 10 feet from a lioness (separated by glass of course), our guide rattles off feline factoids – their running speed (36 m.p.h.), hunting style (trapping, as at 36 m.p.h. they're too slow to run down their prey), and their threatened status (their population is down to 25,000).
The tour continues past the exhibit of a giant eland, a creature the size of a cow that can jump five feet high, and the diminutive bontebok, a cuddly looking gazelle that can't jump at all, a factor central to its extinction in the wild.
I sense an emerging theme. The park has many animals that are threatened, endangered, extinct in the wild, or on the verge of total extinction. The goal of the sleepover program, Ms. Choukri says, is to help people understand the challenges these species face, and "to get kids to care."
That evening, after more cookies and hot chocolate, we get a presentation about conservation from visiting members of the African Masai tribe. (This was part of collaborative effort of Conservation International and the Ol Donyo Wuas Trust to share how the Masai initiated a predator compensation plan to preserve lions. Some programs like these have sparked controversy because of what critics called the appearance of using the tribespeople as an exhibit in the park. Others counter that it would be a shame not to promote transnational programs that allow tribes to educate others and raise funds for themselves, as long as the visitors are being themselves and are not the target of the tourist gaze.)
Two hours later, Matthew and I trudge to our tent. "The lions will be roaring tonight," a staff member tells us. "Hope you sleep OK."
•••
For those who weren't awakened by the lions, a guide walks by with a squawk box 20 minutes before the 6:30 a.m. tour. The walk offers a dawn check-in with the lions, where the cubs are enjoying breakfast. A lioness strolls up to the viewing window and sits in striking profile – readier for her close up than Norma Desmond ever was. We get a last tour after our breakfast – a tram ride past exotic creatures from Africa. By the time we return, the park is coming to life for the day. We hear the rhythms of waking up: the hiss of sprinklers, employees reporting to work, and the roar of construction equipment. When the gates finally open, day-trippers quickly file in, and our intimate interlude is over.
Days later, I ask Matthew if the experience made him care more about animals. "Yeah," he says, and then adds, "Saving animals in a zoo is good," he adds, "Not destroying habitat is better."
Lions, keep roaring. Adults, be on notice – the next generation is paying close attention.
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