Lion Country Safari, 1973

Sue B. sent me some scans of photo prints, pictures that her dad (Lou Perry) took at Lion Country Safari, a drive-through safari park located outside Irvine, California, which opened in 1970. Allowing guests to drive their own vehicles through open enclosures, it was the first cageless safari park of its kind to open in southern California. I visited LCS once or twice when I was a kid, it was always a fun thing to do.

I suppose Southern California made for a pretty good simulation of the African veldt, all the critters seemed very at-home. You could just tell! In the distance, trucks with campers, station wagons, and other vehicles move slowly along the roadway, everyone is hoping that one of the animals will come right up to their car!

Like this ostrich. What a goofy bird! But how often do you get to see one right outside your vehicle window? No more than four or five times a year, typically. 

Lou was aboard a bus, apparently - perhaps certain bus lines offered tours of LCS? Maybe Sue can enlighten us. This kid with the mouse ears is a fun touch. A giraffe is blocking the road! Feeding the animals was forbidden, but why else would he be there? He sure seems to be hoping for a snack. And mouse-ear kid is just the thing for a giraffe, as we all know. Tender and juicy.

"This bus is full of deadbeats!", the giraffe said in his Brooklyn accent (don't ask). He'll go try some other chumps - I mean guests.

Zebras are always fun to see, with their bold pattern of stripes. Fun fact: one in every thousand zebras is born plaid! I swear on a stack of pancakes. The put a feeding station (with genuine African alfalfa) right near the road, which is pretty clever.

"Say, why was it called LION Country Safari, anyway?". Well Timmy, there actually were lions. Commercials always showed a car with a lion on the hood, but when I visited they looked more like the sleepy cats in the next two photos. "Honk your horn mom! Ron, roll down your window and offer them a cookie!". 

Folks who lived in SoCal around then might remember one particular lion - Frasier! He was an elderly lion that was given to the facility in 1970 from a circus in Mexico. Already 18 years old, the lion was toothless, ill, and arthritic. He became a major attraction at the park when, despite his advanced age, he fathered litters totaling 35 lion cubs by the park's pride of six lionesses.

There will be a PART TWO, coming up soon! THANK YOU, Lou and Sue!