All right. It's all happening at Safari Lake Geneva. Jungle J Christy is here. Good to
see again. Jumbo. Yeah. Rosen. It's good to be back in the bell city. And now is that
with the bill? No, that's not Milwaukee the bell. We're the cream city, aren't we?
No, well, let's look that up at the next break. Yeah. Okay. And the Safari Lake Geneva opens up
on May 1st, right? And it runs through October, October 31st. Okay. And if you don't know what
Safari Lake Geneva is, it's a drive through Safari. Will you drive through with your car?
And the animals are all around you. Much like if you're going through Safari in Africa,
I remember the movie, a hataria. So a John Wayne when I was a kid. And that's what they did. They
had this Jeep and but they were hunting animals and through through Kenya. Well, they were bringing
him back alive, actually. And that was okay. And Wayne said that was his favorite movie of all the
ones you ever know. Yeah. Okay. So describe it for people that don't know. First of all, it's just
outside Lake Geneva, right? That's right. Just southeast of downtown, less than a 10 minute drive.
But drive you do as many times as you like in the same day. And that is absolutely right. You know,
you could even come in the morning and then leave go have lunch at one of our fine dining
establishments in Lake Geneva and come back after lunch, no extra charge. That's great. Okay.
But I'd like an African Safari. These animals are coming right up and feeding from you if you
so choose to purchase some of our specialty grain. So it's really quite interactive.
I went to one when I was in Florida years ago. There was a drive through Safari.
And these animals are bigger than you think they are. When you see an ostrich on TV,
you don't realize how big they are until they walk up to your car window and they're huge. All
these animals are huge. They just look small. You see them on television. That's true, Don. And if
this was years ago in Florida, it could only have been a lion country safari in West Palm Beach.
Does that check out? That's it. Okay. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Because my parents lived in
Boyton Beach not far from there. And we went through there. Yeah. It showed up on a memory
thing a couple of days ago on my phone and I'm looking at the animals and I remember the car in
front of us. The woman was screaming. She was terrified because the animals are coming up to her
car. But what you think was going to happen when you're doing drive through. But she was terrified.
She was screaming. And I see her daughter was trying to tail drive. But they tell you don't get
out of the car. Stay in the car, right? Because they're still animals. I mean, these are not pets.
So give us give us a rundown of what I mean, and then we're going to name the babies you have.
But first, rundown some of the animals people see when they come to safari Lake Geneva.
Well, unlike lion country safari, you will see no lions. In fact, none of the animal residents
are predisposed to eating our our customers, which should be. They're well fed. That's that's
right. So primarily grazing animals and things that you might find in the plains of Africa or
perhaps the steps of Asia. So things like camels and and ostriches, as you mentioned,
multiple types of antelope. Half a dozen different species of antelope. In fact,
and of course, some of the most recognizable and iconic animals of the African savannah,
including zebras and giraffes. Now giraffes are huge. And again, when you see them on TV,
they don't look that big, but when you see them in person, and I've seen them in person,
they are just huge animals. Now, how do you get the, how do you get a giraffe?
Well, interestingly, both of our giraffes come from right here in the dairy state.
This is the dairy state, right? Yeah. Okay. And they were born up in Monaco, actually.
At the wildlife park up there, they're they're siblings or full brothers.
But yeah, the last giraffe imported into this country was probably in the 80s. In fact,
probably in 1986, there was an import from Kenya of articulated giraffes. But since then,
no wild giraffes have been imported into the US. So if you see a giraffe on US soil,
you can be sure that that was American born or potentially born in Canada.
Yeah. Okay. Give us a little background on you because at one time, you were in charge of the
Racine Zoo. And there was just a childhood dream to have your own Safari Park at one time.
Yes, it was. When I was very, very young, I dreamed of being a zookeeper and I was able to do that
eventually. And then it's like a little bit older. I don't know why I thought I had
management potential, but what I thought maybe I'd be a zoo director. But by the time I was 10
or 11, I'd really fixated on this idea that you could probably improve on the whole zoo concept
by turning it right on its head and allowing animals to roam at liberty throughout the property
and confining the visitors, the customers to cages themselves, specifically their cars where they
could safely observe even the largest animals. And then so that had been a fixation for decades
and finally managed to bring it to fruition in 2016. So this is our 10th season.
How big is the park acre acreage wise? We own 75 acres. But we're only using a fraction of
that now. So there's a lot of room to expand. How many people you have taken care of the animals?
So people don't realize this. Yeah, they're from May to October. But the other
animals still have to eat from October to May. They have to eat. They need medical care.
Constantly, maybe look that there's got to be people on the ground. So even though no money's
coming in from October to May, money's going out. Yes, it sure is. We can get by day to day with
with three or four people out there in the winter. But when when some are rolls around, we've got
close to 30 people on that payroll. If you include some of our interns and other seasonal staff.
So what do you feed some of these animals like giraffe? You're in a giraffe
chow. I never heard of it. So what do you feed these animals? It must be expensive.
There is a zebra chow. Is it really interestingly? But the food we feed the
the giraffes is made for full liverous animals, meaning animals that eat leaves
specifically. So it's a small grain. But then they eat alfalfa. And then what we call browse,
which is leaves that we trim from some of the local trees to to swell, simulate their behavior
in the wild, which is it's a considerable amount of time stripping leaves off of trees.
Now you recently had a couple of births. That's right. Yeah. What was born there?
A bouncing baby boy llama. Oh, okay. And an adorable baby girl Highland cow.
Okay. Brand new residents. Just this month. Yeah. And they have no names yet.
That's right. These beasts are without monarchers. So maybe keep an eye on our Facebook page
for your opportunity to give the perfect name to these perfect babies. Now we were talking before
we went on the air. There's a Galapagos turtle that from the Philadelphia zoo that's been there
since 1932. The turtle they say is 94 years old. And she just had her first babies for turtle
turtleettes or whatever they come from the at the zoo. 94 years old that that tortoise has been
there. That turtle Galapagos tortoise has been there since 1932. I mean, that's a long time,
94 year. And it was already a couple of years old when they got it. They said, but there's no
way to determine the exact age, but they estimate it's 94 years old. Wow. That's a long time
resident. I don't know. Were there any Galapagos turtles that you've seen in the zoos around here?
Oh boy, that's a great question done. I mean, this turtle was huge. It was a huge animal or whatever
you, I guess mammal or whatever they are. They are the largest of the land turtles that they're
not the largest turtle overall. That distinction belongs to the leatherback sea turtle, which can
can weigh well over a thousand pounds. Whoa. A turtle, Joe. That's for sure.
And currently no leatherbacks in captivity. Interestingly, it hasn't been some for many years.
I think there were so in Florida back in the 60s at one point, but lots of other sea turtles.
You can see it aquariums and sews around the country. Now your website, it's an interesting
website. It's not so far like Geneva. It's far like Geneva reservations required. Is that my
saying it right? We do like to underscore that. And that's he put it in the title so people
remember that that is for sure. Because even today, 10 years in, we still have people arrive and
say that they had no idea that they had to make a reservation, but that's just the way it is. And
that really helps us moderate how many people go through and improve the experience because it could
be well potential bedlam on a busy holiday weekend in the summer. If you think about it,
if we just let any of this at your busiest time, like Memorial weekend, the 4th of July weekend,
well, you know, every weekend sells out. So we're not quite sure what the exact
saturation point is, but you can usually buy a ticket online the same day on a weekday.
And it is far like Geneva reservations required. All right. Yes, it sure is. So just go to
Wells Safari Lake Geneva dot com and click on book now to make that reservation. Okay,
Safari Lake Geneva dot com. I know it was always reservations required in the title there.
So yeah, family members help you out. Yes, I sure do. Or they say, you're crazy. You deal with
this. Well, both is probably would be the answer there, Don. My wife is our director of conservation.
And then the three kids show up in sporadically at least and pitch in every once in a great
while throughout the summer. You never had an escape, do you? No, now that you mentioned it,
that has not happened. The whole property is surrounded by not one eight foot tall fence,
but two when they're about 14 feet apart. And the reason for that is that in theory,
wild white tail deer could jump animals and come in, right? But they won't jump over two fences
in a row if they're less than 16 feet apart. So that's how we settled on 14 feet apart. So we've
never had had a wild hoofed animal get in. And nor have we had any of ours leave the property.
Now, I do follow you on Facebook. And I notice sometimes you say it's raining or foggy today,
certain animals won't be out. What they can't come out in the fog in the rain or how does that
work? Well, since last year, in fact, and this is really recent because I was still working on
this corral yesterday, we've arranged it such that that on light rain days, the giraffes probably
could be visible still, but historically that they would often be inside their temperature-controlled
barn during rain, because they're just not not fans of it. And if the temperature of the feels
like temperature is under 45 degrees for their own well-being, we tend to keep them in as well.
So we do our best to update the Facebook page and let people know if there's a good chance they
won't see a giraffe. Now, you mentioned the temperature-controlled. So all winter, you've got a high
heating bill with that place, right? Not as high as you might think. Other than the giraffes and maybe
the monkeys and a few others, it's a pretty hardy bunch, which doesn't mean that we don't have any
heat for them. We sure do, but it's surprising how throughout the winter, even during the coldest
days, you'll see these African and Asian animals meandering around outside, sometimes even in the
middle of the night, I'll observe them walking around in the snow. It's quite remarkable. But,
of course, they can go in and warm up whenever they want, and that's fine with us. We're not
open anyway, so it doesn't matter to us whether they want to be inside or outside. Now, you said
monkeys. That's right. Now, do they roam around the grounds during the drive-through?
They can jump on your car. They can jump in front of your car, and it might be dangerous.
They can even climb that fence. That's right. Baboons and other monkeys like that are still found
in drive-through safaris in Europe, not so much in North America. There's still some in Ontario,
I guess, but at any rate, ours are much smaller monkeys than that, and then a walk-through exhibit,
which is perhaps even more unusual. In fact, other than the zoo and Phoenix, I'm hard-pressed to
think of of any place in the U.S., where you can actually walk inside an exhibit with squirrel monkeys.
I'm going to ask you, by the way, I found an interesting thing the other day. We found this
YouTube video of somebody in England saying how we pronounce words different from pairs,
and what was squirrel? They said, you say squirrel, like squirrel, squirrel. We say squirrel,
because there were two ours in the squirrels. So in England, they call them squirrels.
We call them squirrels. Interesting. I know where really we are. So we have a
a neighbor pit bull that stays with us on Fridays, comes over the house as she loves to chase squirrels.
How to just start this? I mean, first you got to get the land, obviously. How do you obtain
these animals there? They come from all over the world. Most of them would, I was
domesticated when you got them. How do you get them? Where do you find animals like this?
You know, you don't remember. They've arrived at our door via just about every legal
avenue I would think, including a few rescues. But I guess as a
as a byproduct of being in this business for as long as I have, I do have contacts throughout
the country. And some of them are from from private individuals who breed these animals. But
a good percentage like those giraffes are coming from my institutions like ours that are
open to the public and breeding animals like this. Man, it's got to be an undertaking to get
this thing started because I remember when you were at the Racine Zoo as executive director.
And then all of a sudden you said, I'm starting a safari in Lake Geneva and you did it.
That's pretty much how it happened. Now, I hate to bring this up because it's kind of an
off thing. Someday you're not going to be here. We're all right. It's going to be here someday.
Do you have plans for the safari after you go? Because you know, you never know what it can happen.
And you've got a lot of animals there that need care. And you are the guy in charge.
And you're the animal person. You're the expert on these. Did you make plans someday?
Well, you're not the first person to ask me this, Don. I think my mother-in-law was the first one
I got my first camel. And she said, well, how long does the camel live? And I said 40 years. And she
looked at me and was clearly doing the math. And her dad was like, well, who's going to
get a calculator? All I was like, 40, you'll be 120 at that point.
So we haven't abandoned all hope as it relates to one of our three children taking up the mantle. But
my wife is my junior and presumably would come up with a good plan in the meantime. But I think once
the kids get in college, we'll probably sit them down and have a more serious conversation
about that. It's probably worth mentioning we haven't gone all in on making some of these
just over the top investments in exhibits like you might see at a zoo with artificial rock work and
indoor exhibits, et cetera, just because in the event that someone wanted to acquire that
property and do something other than a zoo with that we figured we probably don't want to
have hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure in there that they'd have to remove if they
want to. It's kind of sad. This was a bad thing I brought up. Yeah, you're making me a little
now. I feel bad. I don't feel bad for you. I feel bad for the animals because you're going to go
and that said, we're all going to go. But I feel bad for animals because they live
different lives than they don't know. I saw a video the other day and I broke my heart
and haven't had to bring it up. But there was a gentleman he was dying and they brought his
dog in to be with him on his last moments. And the reason was because the dog would know that he
died and if they dog didn't know he'd be sitting at home waiting for him every day to come home
having anxiety. Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? So they brought the dog in to lay on his
chest in his last seconds of life. So now the dog knows what happened to him and he won't be sitting
there at home waiting all the time. That's an interesting thought. So when you're in your bed,
some they were going to bring it all the end. That's a great idea. Bring the monkeys in. Bring
the baboons in. We went on the air. No, that might be novel. Have you lay in state, lie in state,
right? The animals parading through. But that was an interesting thought. I never, never gave
thought to him. So this way the dog knows what happened to his master. I am sad. Let's give
a stop of that. That's a bad topic to bring up. Okay. So let's review here real quickly.
It's a Safari Lake Geneva opens up May 1st. That's tomorrow.
And then. Yes, it sure is. Last time I checked the first availability isn't until a Saturday
in fact. Oh, so you can't even. Yeah. Okay. And you get in by going to Safari Lake Geneva.com.
Right. And you put in a reservation because you got to have those. Don't just show up. Get a
reservation. And what are the prices to get in? Well, it depends on whether you're coming on a
week day or a weekend or a holiday. But if it were a weekend or a holiday, it would be $25.95
for an adult, $19.95 for a kid. And we're a weekday just, uh, well, $2 off of. That's great.
That's right. What a win. What memories, huh? They go all the pictures again. And you said,
you can actually leave the park when you're done come back later in the day.
You know, and they put a bit clawmark on your hand. You get one of the answers. Scratch your hand.
And that shows that you've been there Safari Lake Geneva.com Safari Lake Geneva.com. Check it out.
Now your web your Facebook pages just Safari Lake Geneva reservations required.
Safari Lake Geneva on line reservations required. That is right. Okay. For Facebook.
If it's a Safari Lake Geneva, it'll show up on Facebook. True. And you can follow them all season long.
And that's pretty neat. And I, you got to see Jay when he comes in. Now this is the,
this is where I would know you. You wear the khaki jacket. You got the hat the jungle hat on.
And would you get the name jungle Jay? And who gave you that?
You know, I've been asked that before. And no one's been able to quite parse out or, or discover.
It just goes back that far that I don't know if we could pinpoint the first time that I was,
uh, I like to joke that that my parents named me that to his, because they had some foreshadowing
that this wouldn't be my career. But, but I think it was after I was born that I picked it up.
My parents named me Don. That's how I got my name. That's for sure. I was telling you earlier,
I didn't have a name on my birth certificate. So I heard. Yeah. It just, it just was blank.
When I went to get my driver's license or passport, I figured what it was.
So we can't accept this name on it. And so I had a right back. And luckily it was very easy.
I ride back to the city of New York. Luckily, it was, it was easier than I thought. And they said,
yes, we have it here. We'll just make you copy and send it to you. I thought it would be a whole
big rigmarole to get it. And it wasn't. It was pretty easy. Thanks for coming to my friend.
Anytime. Okay. Safari Lake Geneva opens up May 1st, runs through October. Reservations
required. Just go to Safari Lake Geneva dot com Safari Lake Geneva dot com. Check it out.
And then take a take a weekend day or a weekday. If you're on vacation, take the kids. They'll
be on summer break coming up soon and just enjoy the day. And I'll tell you something. I went to
the Catskill Game Farm when I was a kid. We used to go there all the time. And you're familiar
with the Catskill Game Farm? It's not there anymore. I am through reputation only. I was never
able to make it there. Yeah. It's not there. I can remember everything about that when I was
seven years old, eight years old. We were there every year to the Catskill Game Farm,
our state, New York. And you never forget those things when you're a kid. So bring your kids.
And who knows? They may be the next jungle J. You never know. That's right.
That people have to get interested somehow in taking care of animals. Thank you, my friend.
I do appreciate it. My pleasure. And we're going to have you back before it while the season when
the season gets going. And tell us what we got to you call me up on the phone. We'll do a
phone or and come with the names are when you find out what they are. The new baby llama and
the new baby. It's not a it's not on the yak. Would you go or an ox? Would you call it?
Highland cattle calf. Okay. I don't think you have cows there, huh?
That is right. All right. You're welcome. That I've never tried. But you have a water buffalo too.
And of course the original mozzarella cheese comes from water buffalo. And I know we got to take
Paul Harvey here, but I got to tell you we were out in South Dakota. A lot of buffalo out there.
We were a customer national park. And we saw a bison in the distance. And my wife said,
I don't think that's real. I think it's a cardboard cut out as that's been moved in about
15 minutes. I think they put that there for people driving through the park. And we're staring at
I'm sure it was real, but it didn't move. And we took we took a video of it. And yet I think
that's a cardboard cut out. Now it obviously wasn't able to cardboard cut out there. But I didn't
see it move in the video. We have it just standing there. There was nothing. But you know,
we thought it was there for the tourists. And when anyway, thank you, Jungle J. I'd appreciate
you coming. Jungle J. Christy from Safari Lake Geneva Safari Lake Geneva dot com.