Halloween Archives - Safari West

Bats, Bones, & Walking with the Dead

Safari West Staff — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 14:00:31 +0000

This year for Halloween you could stick with the same-old-same-old. You could go snag a cheap costume from Wal-Mart, make a lap around the block and retire with a sad sack of candy. Or, you could get creative, get wild, and come join the party at Safari West! Make a reservation for our Halloween Spook-tacular on Saturday, October 29, 2016 and come see how we do it on the Sonoma Serengeti.

We’ve got everything you could want in a Halloween celebration. There’s the Conservation Pumpkin patch where you can sponsor a pumpkin for our wild creatures. There’s something awesome about watching a rhinoceros smash a jack-o-lantern, or seeing the lemurs sneak up on a snack-filled gourd. With a small donation, you can make that happen and help support the work of the Vulture Conservation Foundation! You may not think of buzzards as birds that need some help, but they most certainly do and you could be a part of that.

We’ve also got the Safari West Trick-or-Treat Trail which passes through our Junior Keepers’ Mad Science Lab, past the Wall of Skulls, and through the Bone Garden where our Osteology Lab Scientists bring Dia de los Muertos and Safari West together in an amazing way. There are incredible things to see and delicious candy to collect. And when your feet feel a little tired, you’re welcome to kick back and relax on the Trick-or-Trek bus tour, a 45-minute cruise through a few of our habitats. Enjoy the sights of giraffes, rhinos, and antelope galore as you travel through their Safari West home.

But what about the costumes? Of course, you should come in costume! All we ask is that you skip those cheap plastic things you find in the store. They’re made of single-use plastic and are almost guaranteed to wind up in a landfill by Thanksgiving. Instead, show off your creativity. Come up with an awesome costume made with stuff you find around the house, or from recycled old costumes, or from anything else you can think of. Wow us with your imagination and ingenuity and you just may take home a prize!

Lastly, if you want to make a day of it, reserve dinner with us. After an afternoon of exploration and fun, sit down at the Savanna Café for a delicious African-inspired meal followed by a presentation by Corky Quirk of Nor-Cal Bats. Not only will she fascinate you with her stories of our local flying mammals, she’ll introduce you to a few live and in person.

Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are festivals to honor the dead and celebrate the living. Come to celebrate with us at Safari West and make your Halloween wild!

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Conservation Pumpkin Patch

Jared Paddock — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 12:17:05 +0000

This Halloween, amid the spooky cobwebs and costumed keepers, Safari West kicked off our Conservation Pumpkin Patch. This pumpkin patch is a little different than the others you’ve seen around town in that instead of going to get carved up and put on porches, our pumpkins go out to be carved, kicked, clawed, smashed, eaten and otherwise toyed with by our animals here at the park. Not only that but the money spent on these gourds doesn’t go into our pockets, instead, it’s donated to one of three conservation organizations.

Here’s how it works: when you drop by our patch you find a pumpkin that speaks to you and sponsor it for a donation of $5 ($5 is the minimum donation. Some of you may wish to donate more and you are certainly more than welcome to). You then pick which animal department your sponsored pumpkin goes to: carnivores, birds and small mammals, or hoof-stock. The money you donate will go to the conservation organization sponsored by that department. For the carnivore department it’s the Small Cat Conservation Alliance, for birds and small mammals it’s the Lemur Conservation Foundation and for hoof-stock, it’s the Sahara Conservation Fund. All three of these organizations are doing amazing work out in the world protecting and conserving some very special animals and habitats.

Halloween weekend marked the beginning of our pumpkin patch rather than it’s close and if you’re looking to get involved, we’ll be up and running every weekend through Thanksgiving. In our first weekend, we raised over $250 which is a great start toward our goal of at least $1,500 in total or $500 per organization. Our second weekend garnered even more in spite of the rainy weather!

Peter and Nancy Lang, the owners of Safari West are also getting in on the action by offering to match all contributions up to our goal amount! So if you are planning a trip here, whether to join us on safari or for dinner at the Savannah Cafe, stop by the Safari West Conservation Pumpkin Patch and have your donation to a worthy cause immediately doubled!

We were also featured in an NBC Bay Area article here!

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Gourds of Enrichment

Safari West Staff — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:34:43 +0000

Wild Pumpkin Patch Coming to Safari West

This year Safari West wants to Fall into the wild by giving thanks and showing support for the wildlife hero’s conserving nature in the field. Every year we receive a very generous post-Halloween donation of pumpkins from our local vendors. These vibrant orange gourds are then put to use as exciting new animal enrichment items by our husbandry experts. Whether carved, stuffed, smashed, or whole the critters at Safari West have a ball with these once a year treats. This is also a great time of year for the Safari West keepers as they get to find creative new ways to execute our pumpkin enrichment agenda.

This year we’d like to share this excitement with you. Whether you come for a tour, a meal, or an overnight stay be sure to look for the Safari West conservation team hanging out with the pumpkins every weekend from Halloween to Thanksgiving. Here you will be able to sponsor a pumpkin to be included in the next week’s enrichment program. You can also choose which of the keeper departments your pumpkin will be used in: Carnivores, Hoof Stock, or Birds & Small Mammals. The proceeds generated by each of the three departments will then go directly into a conservation program of their choosing.

We will be advertising these conservation affiliates at the pumpkin patch with our staff standing by to tell you all about each of them.

What can be better than celebrating the Fall with so many wonderful friends…large, small, furred, feathered, clawed, winged, beaked, whiskered and more!

Pumpkin Patch will be open every weekend (Sat-Sun) from Halloween to Thanksgiving 9:30 am to 5:30 pm
Minimum $5 donation per pumpkin (no maximum)
You will receive an email with photos of the animals making use of your sponsored pumpkins!

Also, don’t forget…when you visit, check out the Pumpkin Patch Skeletonsput together by our Osteology Team

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