I had the opportunity in December to visit the Wild Florida Drive-through Safari and then their Gator Park. My son was visiting from Denver and it gave me the opportunity to visit someplace new. I thought I’d just share a few pictures from the day for your enjoyment.

The map for the park is shown below. We are currently living in Kissimmee, Florida, which is at the southern end of the Orlando metropolitan area. Wild Florida is about 25 miles south of us and it was quite refreshing to get out of the congestion of the city and into the more rural part of central Florida.

When you purchase admission to the drive-thru safari (or the Airboat tour), you also get admission to the “Gator Park”. I’ve included pictures from both below. When you drive your vehicle into the safari park, they provide you with an 8-page “Safari Guide” which is essentially a checklist/field guide to the animals that you might see during your 4-mile drive through the 170 acre property. They say there are over 150 different species in the park. They also have audio information about the animals which can be accessed on a podcast site. I’ve just selected a handful of the animals to show you, and I may or may not be correctly identifying them here.

We first saw a small herd of waterbucks crossing the road ahead of us next to Lemur Island.

There were several large live oak trees on the property and a small herd of bison were grazing under one of them.

I believe that this is an Eland antelope. They can get to be up to 2,200 pounds!

I loved the appearance of the Highland Cow!

Not all animals had hooves. We had our windows down when we approached this ostrich. However, we raised them very quickly as he began to run toward us! He angrily pecked at the car window and we drove on!

This might be a Watusi. He wasn’t running or seemed particularly agitated by us, but we kept a close eye on those horns anyway!

Zebras are always a sight for sore eyes – not sure what that actually means.

This might be a blackbuck.

And there’s another one of those Watusi’s giving us the eye!

While we did not stop to go up there, there is a viewing and feeding platform at the exit from which you can see the giraffes up close.

The “Gator Park” has a pretty good collection of exotic animals besides alligators.

I said “exotic”, but not all animals in the park are non-native to Florida. For example, here is a Florida Panther, which still roams the swamps of Florida.

Speaking of swamps, I loved that they have a boardwalk built to enable you to walk out among the Cypress trees in Hawk Swamp.

No, this python (I think) is not loose in that swamp (although I suppose there might be some). It was in a glass cage with a swamp photo behind it.

Here is a Ring-Tailed Lemur.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a “Gator Park” without alligators.

We watched a feeding demonstration in which they would hang a piece of chicken and then ride it out on a cable for the gators to rise up out of the water to get.

We finished off the day visiting an Emu. He wasn’t as mean looking as the ostrich, but there was no window between him and us!

While a fairly small facility, Florida Wild was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely go back. It never ceases to amaze me how diverse and spectacular God’s creation is. I believe it was with great love and care that he specially created every type of animal and plant as a demonstration of His glory. As Paul told the Roman church (Romans 1:19-20), “For what can be known about God is plain to them [all people], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” However you choose to do it, get out there and praise God in His creation!