You don't have to travel to southern Africa to see safari wildlife
Chehaw Park's latest attraction will open to the public tomorrow.
The African Veldt Exhibit features animals native to the grasslands of the southern Africa region.
You can now enjoy an African Safari right here in Dougherty County.
For the past two years, Chehaw Park has worked on the new African Veldt Exhibit and today they cut the ribbon to the new attraction.
"It has been a long process because it is such a complex operation, having to clear the areas, and put up the fencing and get the animals, and get them acclimated," says Doug Porter, Chehaw Executive Director.
A vision of wildlife expert Jim Fowler, the exhibit includes Eland, Impala, Wildebeest, Zebra, Ostrich, and Antelope up close in an area similar to their natural habitat.
"This is a great opportunity for Chehaw and for Albany, it gives us something else to market and we look forward to helping them out with it, going and getting up close and personal with the animals will be fun for all ages," says Rashelle Beasley.
A tractor pulls visitors on a trailer through the exhibit to get close to the animals in their natural habitat.
"It is a large pasture, about 47 acres, there are no roads out there and our drivers are trained to interpret the animals, just like you would if you went to Africa," says Porter.
Exhibits like this one draws people from all over surrounding counties and states.
Attendance at the park jumped about 10% in 2011.
"This is a great opportunity for Chehaw and for Albany, it gives us something else to market and we look forward to helping them out with it, going and getting up close and personal with the animals will be fun for all ages," says Porter.
And in 2011, 108-thousand people visited Chehaw, about 10-thousand more than the previous year.
"We want to keep doing things like this that will keep driving attendance up, it is a combination for us of finding things that fir with our mission, that are interesting, exciting, and unique, that we can also generate revenue with," says Porter.
And he hopes this will be a revenue generator for the park and Dougherty County as well.
The exhibit will be open tomorrow to the public. Admission to the exhibit is 5 dollars and it is opened on weekends only.
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