TN-VA-WV Plus OH: Stop 5-Day 2, The Wilds

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

We came to Ohio for what happened today.  We visited The Wilds conservation center, not to be confused with the TV show.  The Wilds is a private, non-profit safari park and conservation center located in Muskingum County, Ohio.  It is about 35 minutes from Wolfie’s Campground.  It is the largest wildlife conservation in North America encompassing 9,154 acres of reclaimed coal mine land.  Currently they are only using between 3-4,000 acres for the park and the remainder will be used as they grow.  They are doing a lot of work to preserve a number of endangered species.  We aren’t sure exactly how they got their wildlife but know that some of them came from other zoos.  We began our day with a not-so-safari like experience of ziplining through the park and canopy, over some lakes and in view but never over wildlife.  Since this was our first time to have the opportunity to zipline we took advantage of the opportunity and really enjoyed the experience.  We would definitely do it again.

The afternoon was spent in a safari type vehicle driving around the park.  We saw most of the species in the park (too many to include) but not all and got what we think are some pretty good pictures too.  It was a different and very fun day.  We have enjoyed our short visit in Ohio.  Tomorrow we start a trek back toward Alabama.