The Oregon Ducks: West Coast Game Park Safari 10-10-08

Duck had a fabulous morning that Friday morning golfing in Bandon and after lunch time we met him there, it's only about 20 min south of Coos Bay, to go explore. First we visited the West Coast Game Park Safari. Click to see the websit. It's America's largest Petting zoo basically. Not all animal are pettable, but it's huge! They have a little area that they bring out some animals to be featured throughout the day and you can pet them and learn more about them. The first animal that we saw just as we got there was a Panther. It was a baby but still huge!....for a baby anyway. Kyson was scared, but fearless Maliyah wanted to pet it right away.

They had quite the variety of animals there, zebra, lions, tigers, camels, monkeys, bears, and many more. The ones that roamed free included deer, goats, donkeys, turkeys, chicken, peacocks, lama, and way more that I was unsure of what they were!

Maliyah was most excited about seeing the deer. WE have many deer around where we live, but of course they run away the second they are seen. So to be able to see them and pet them and feed them was pretty cool. The goats loved you the second you stepped into the park, but the deer were only interested in you if you had food. So I ran back to the front desk and got a few sugar cones full of food. They were suddenly more than interested! In fact I had to use legs and arms to keep them from mauling Maliyah, but then I got mauled! There is a sign that shows you how to feed the animals....and one picture showed that you don't feed them high. Well I wasn't trying to feed them high, just hold teh food away from me, but then that's when I realized the point of the picture. Don't hold the food high! I had these huge deer jumping up on me! it was crazy! WE finally got out of there and away from the madness!

Again Fearless Maliyah trying to pet and feed any animal she could. Although she was scared a little after the deer mauling. And as soon as we even got near where the feeding grounds were for all the free roaming animals they all started towards us! WE had to run and hide to get away from them. Especially the goats. They just become your best friend, follow you everywhere. By the time we left all our pants were filthy with animal foot prints!

There were two very entertaining bears. Usually at the zoo the bears are sleeping or hiding in a cave. These two, well one in particular was wild, running around, jumping and playing in his pool of water, and then contstanly trying to pick a fight with the other bear. He had some major anger issues!

This bear though was mellow and loved getting attention. He/she would just sit there and watch us and pose and follow where we went. She even starting quietly talking to us, it was really sweet.

Poor Jade of course stuck in the stroller the whole time was such a trooper. We did get him out a few times though to see the animals and touch them...he totally loved it!

One of the unidentifiable animals. I don't remember the name or where it's from, but it's the worlds largest rodent. And it was huge!

This was an africal serval cat, whatever that is, but is one of their nursery animals that they feature and let you pet. In fact with this baby they would let a few people in at a time to play with it. It was so dang cute and the kids loved watching it play and holding it.