Florida Safari Wild park neighbors were not informed of the true nature of the park.

madfloridian

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Tue May-26-09 12:39 AM
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Florida Safari Wild park neighbors were not informed of the true nature of the park.

A large adventure park with 1000 animals, big animals, including big cats, tour buses, guided tours, restaurants, gift shops....were all brought into a very rural area without due notice.

The county slipped it through unobtrusively. Apparently county planners honored the request of the land buyers that the project be classified low impact. Thus little notification would have to be done to neighboring properties.

The project is still under a stop work order, but now a lot more is coming out in the news about it. I have seen several videos of the neighbors speaking their concerns on local news out of Tampa.

This really was a sneaky way to do business.

Animal park neighbors upset by lack of information

Neighbors on Moore Road near Lakeland feel blindsided. Why, they ask, didn't someone from county government think to notify them that a tourist attraction was being planned for their back yard.

The 260-acre animal park in Polk County has yet to open because a review by county officials is not complete. No public hearing on the issue is planned.

Records show before Salisbury and his business partner St. Petersburg veterinarian Stephen Wehrmann bought the property, they wanted assurances from the county that the project would be classified as one which would have little impact on neighbors and receive limited public input. When contacted by telephone, Salisbury hung up, stating, "Don't ever call me again."

The only public notification neighbors received was a June 2006 classified ad that ran a few times in the Lakeland Ledger.

The only thing neighbors had been told aside from the ad in the classifieds was that it was going to be a rest area, a retreat for animals from Lowry Park Zoo.

One neighbor I saw in a news video was stunned at how they slipped the project through.

What Murphy later learned distresses her even more.

By classifying Safari Wild as a recreational, low intensity project, the county effectively removed public input from the equation, once the ads in the newspaper ran back in 2006.

The first real knowledge the neighbors had of the real intent of the Safari Wild park was when the monkeys escaped by swimming the moat.

Rounding up the escaped monkeys

LAKELAND - A dozen monkeys that escaped from a wildlife preserve during the weekend have all the ingredients to start a successful colony in the wild, including mature males, reproducing females and a dominant troop leader.

A while later they rounded them up.

..."The four Patas monkeys were caught by trappers in North Lakeland, not far from where they escaped.

The fifth was found shot to death near the Polk County wildlife park.

The 15 monkeys escaped from the park, which is still under construction, in April by swimming a moat they were not thought to be able to cross.

Here is more about how it was sneaked through by Polk County. During the process Lex Salisbury was let go from his post as head of the Lowry Park Zoo.

From Creative Loafing:

Lowry Park Zoo and Safari Wild

In 2006, after Lex Salisbury shot and killed an escaped Sumatran tiger at Lowry Park, Creative Loafing investigated several claims against the zoo (see "Endangered Species: How Safe is Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo," Oct. 25, 2006). Former employees gave detailed accounts of a number of issues at the zoo ranging from ignored safety measures, inexperienced and overworked employees and escaped animals. A U.S. Department of Agriculture report substantiated many of these claims. But there was one rumor from the employees that was not easily proven: Salisbury was creating a zoo of his own.

"We knew animals were coming and going," says Jeff Kremer, a former Lowry Park Zoo employee who launched the Tampa's Zoo Advocates website after leaving the zoo that year, "but nobody was putting two and two together."

The rumor proved to be true.

In early 2006, Salisbury, along with St. Petersburg veterinarian Stephen Wehrmann, approached a Polk County property owner about buying 260 acres of land just north of Lakeland for a guided safari-like attraction with African and Asian wildlife -- some of which would be animals from Lowry Park Zoo that needed a break from captivity. Soon after, Salisbury and Wehrmann met privately with Polk County officials and later that year, with only a small notice in the local newspaper, and no public hearing, a Polk County planner approved the initial land use designation for the animal park.

Neighbors are also alarmed at the park's plan if a hurricane hits. Remember that 3 major hurricanes hit this area eye on in 2004 in a six week period.

Safari Adventures' hurricane plan concerns neighbors

The 260-acre animal park in Polk County, formerly known as Safari Wild, is the brainchild of former Lowry Park Zoo CEO Lex Salisbury and his business partner, St. Petersburg veterinarian Stephen Wehrmann. Their plans, currently on hold because of permitting issues, call for the development to house 1,000 animals and entertain up to 500 paying visitors a day with guided tours, restaurants and a gift shop. King and other neighbors are wary of how those animals, including cheetahs, will be kept within the confines of the park.

"Recently, we heard about the possibility of large cats being out here and I think probably all of us do have a concern about that," said King.

As hurricane season approaches, the park's plan to deal with the possibility of high winds knocking down fences haven't lessened those worries.

They do not plan to evacuate any animals, only to have staff on hand to monitor things.

The plan calls for two staff members to stay on site to monitor operations, ride out the storm and perform perimeter fence checks as safety allows. Also, the Polk County Sheriff's Department and neighbors will be contacted in the "unlikely case of an escaped Class I animal." A Class 1 animal includes lions, tigers, elephants and rhinoceros.

Water management, Swiftmud, played along as well by lowering a fine from $46,000 to $8,000.

Swiftmud Fine reduced to $8,863 because part of the property was classified as agricultural

Agricultural land can not be fined by Swiftmud.

BROOKSVILLE | The owners of the Safari Wild wildlife park in the Green Swamp were requested to pay $46,036 in fines as part of a consent order for doing drainage work without a permit, the Southwest Florida Water Management District's Governing Board agreed Tuesday. The fine was reduced to $8,863 because part of the property was classified as agricultural, which is exempt from Swiftmud's environmental permit requirements.

The agreement, which had been under consideration for several months, was on the board's consent agenda. The controversial project, which is located off Moore Road northeast of Lakeland, drew public attention last year after a troop of monkeys escaped from the 260-acre facility.

The enforcement action came after it came to light that the complex had been developed quietly without permits from either Swiftmud or Polk County. Polk County building officials had ordered further work to stop last September until Safari Wild officials present an acceptable set of plans.

BUT...they are building on agricultural land. That makes it no longer agricultural..doesn't it?

The park was developing without permits. Since it was not being publicly scrutinized until the monkeys escaped, I will bet the owners are very upset that happened. Otherwise it would have slipped through the process with little oversight.

As one neighbor said on the news..."we have made our peace with the monkeys" because that is really how they found out the extent of the process.