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- Jay Christie: We're situated on 75 acres here.
And it's got some interesting rolling topography to it.
- Jay Christie's lifelong dream
is nestled amongst farm pastures
in Southern Wisconsin.
- It was so evocative of the savanna areas of East Africa.
And, of course, this originally was a savanna.
- Good morning.
- This is Safari Lake Geneva.
- It's an institution
that was founded in the interest
of helping save wildlife around the world.
Folks, if you didn't hear, I'm Jungle Jay.
I'm one of your co-hosts today.
I also founded this place.
Does anyone have any questions?
- Jungle Jay, as he likes to be called,
founded this drive-through wildlife park in 2016.
- Look at that big animal.
- Well, it's a dream come true for me.
I've been really quite obsessive about animals
since I was very young.
In fact, "zoo" was the first word I learned how to read.
Safari is the opposite of a zoo
in that the animals roam at liberty,
much as they would in the wild,
and people are in the cages,
of course, their own cars.
- Feeding zone starts here.
- Unlike a real safari, our guests are allowed
to actually feed the animals,
which makes it very interactive.
- I'm doing it. I'm doing it!
[gasps]
Come on, buddy.
You want some? You want some, big boy?
- You're being surrounded on all sides by these animals.
- Look at those antlers.
- Whoa. - Wow.
- It might just be
that this is every bit as exciting
as an actual African safari
because it's a photographer's paradise.
- I'm holding on for dear life.
- OK. - Oh.
[laughter]
That was a good one.
- The animals represent every continent except Antarctica.
- There's an ostrich.
- I never seen an ostrich before.
I only seen turkeys.
- We do have animals from Africa,
like these ostriches, zebras, giraffes.
She might be showing me that she's bigger
than she actually is.
And therefore, she doesn't want to get pushed around too much.
We also have animals from Asia,
like the nilgai antelope,
the largest of the Asian antelope.
- They don't-- - Hi, Layla.
Hi, Layla, right there.
Good girl.
- We got some big, big animals coming up,
including our bison.
That is right, they are bison, not buffalo.
- Whoa, look at that one!
- We have the largest mammal
native to the Americas,
and that's the Plains bison,
the same type that used to roam these very hills
just a few hundred years ago.
The worst bucket bandits are here.
We're allowing people to do things that would be
maybe ill-advised in the wild.
And the bison, of course, are a premium example of that.
- None of the animals on this game reserve
were actually born in foreign lands.
- Every single one of them you see here
was born right here in good old North America.
My point is we don't have animals here
that were captured from the wild.
- In the wild, some of these same animals
are under the threat of extinction.
- Addax are actually the most endangered antelope
in the world right now.
We do have three right there.
- The world's wildlife is under tremendous pressures.
This is really an excellent opportunity
for people to develop an empathy for animals
and wildlife conservation, in particular.
- For Jungle Jay, an African-style conservation park
on a 20th-century dairy farm
didn't seem that far-fetched.
- At one point, quite clearly,
it was a working dairy farm.
We think that this is a great repurposing
because that same barn that a hundred years ago
held hay for dairy cattle
now holds hay for some of the most imperiled species
from around the world.
All right, so you just kind of hold it out like a wand.
They'll just grab it with their tongue.
- Yeah.
- That tongue is actually 18 inches long.
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Safari Lake Geneva is a conservation park.
- She's happy.
- A portion of our proceeds every year
goes to help support wild animals
and wildlife conservation here in the Americas,
as well as in Africa and Asia.
Sure.
Certainly, a tremendous sense of satisfaction
being able to make a living from what otherwise would
probably be a maybe expensive hobby.
- From a little boy with a wish
to a reality that turned out better
than his wildest dreams.
- Jungle Jay is definitely in his element
out here on the burr oak savanna.
I feel so fortunate that we did land on this property.
It's really fulfilling, almost beyond words.
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