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State, Neighbors Aren't Wild About Safari Park

News Channel 8 photo by PAUL LAMISON

Zebras roam the land that its owners want to turn into Safari Wild, an animal-preserve-like park.

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By BAIRD HELGESON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 31, 2008

LAKELAND - The trouble caused by the patas monkeys that escaped Lex Salisbury's rural Polk County exotic animal park in April has extended beyond the mostly unsuccessful effort to recapture the wily primates.

Polk County officials have ordered the owners of Safari Wild to stop construction after county staff discovered that new buildings on the 258-acre property were more substantial than allowed by permits for basic agricultural structures.

Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Community Affairs is looking into whether the county allowed Salisbury, the president and CEO of Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, and his partner to develop the land without necessary state approval. Safari Wild is in an environmentally sensitive area called the Green Swamp, which holds special state protections.

"The level of development is demonstrated to be well beyond what you'd expect for agricultural activity," said Tom Deardorff, Polk County's growth management director. "This is a chance to step back."

The stop-work order came after Deardorff's staff tried unsuccessfully for two weeks to reach Salisbury and his partner, St. Petersburg veterinarian Stephen Wehrmann. Safari Wild's owners could have received the stop-work order as early as Friday, Deardorff said.

County building officials haven't been able to get on the property, but from neighboring land they could see buildings with foundations, windows and other structures that appeared to be for viewing animals. The structures seemed to overstep the scope of permits for storage buildings, he said.

For work to continue, Safari Wild's founders must get approval for a development plan that details what construction they hope to do, Deardorff said.

Salisbury and Wehrmann did not return several messages seeking comment Friday.

The partners bought the land about 16 miles north of downtown Lakeland in March 2007 for $2.37 million. The two founders got a $1.37 million mortgage from the previous owner, retired Polk County veterinarian L. Bennett Flanders.

Restaurant, Cottages Proposed

Before Flanders sold the land, Salisbury approached the Polk County planning officials on his behalf with a proposal for what they called Florida Animal Park, said Mark Cunningham, who was the county's land development director at the time.

The park's plans were identical to what Salisbury has described for Safari Wild, set to open next year.

The proposal included safari tours in which about 500 daily visitors would see roughly 1,000 exotic and endangered species. The plan called for 40 overnight cottages and a restaurant that would serve alcohol.

Cunningham issued an administrative determination in June 2006 that said the proposal was consistent with permitted land uses for the area, primarily low density uses such as bike and walking trails, with little potential for nuisance.

The county never held a public hearing on the proposal, but published its determination in the Lakeland Ledger. No one appealed the decision, Cunningham said.

The problem is that nobody sent the determination to the state Department of Community Affairs. The DCA has the final say on development in the environmentally sensitive "Area of Critical State Concern," a designation the Green Swamp shares with the Florida Keys.

The swamp is roughly 870 square miles of mostly pine flatwoods and hardwoods swamps. The land recharges the Floridan Aquifer and is the source of the Hillsborough, Withlacoochee and Peace rivers.

On May 15, Rebecca Jetton, the Department of Community Affairs' administrator for areas of critical concern, sent Deardorff a one-page letter saying they reviewed their files and found no record of the Safari Wild project. The letter reiterated the department's authority in permitting development on the land, and gave the county a month to send all relevant documents.

"The plan is supposed to be scrutinized, and so far that has not happened," Jon Peck, an agency spokesman, said. "We need that to happen."

By Friday, the department had not received anything from the county about Safari Wild, Peck said.

Cunningham, who is now the director of planning and development in Denton, Texas, said the department knew about the animal park project in 2006. He remembered a couple of conference calls about the project that included department staff, but couldn't remember their names. Cunningham said he didn't send the administrative determination to the state because it merely clarified what he thought was already allowed on the property.

Hoping To Keep The Peace

Safari Wild's neighbors are particularly concerned the county never held a public hearing.

Like some county and state officials, they only learned about the ambition of Safari Wild's plans when the media arrived to chronicle the escape of 15 monkeys that swam across a manmade moat days after they arrived from Puerto Rico.

To date, only two have been captured.

Carla Parry remembers when the 8-foot fence popped up where her 20-acre property borders Safari Wild.

Her family often rides four-wheelers on their land, frequently seeing the deer, hogs and other wildlife that roam the area.

"All of the sudden, the kids started seeing zebras and buffalo," on the Safari Wild property, Parry said.

Somebody from Safari Wild, wearing a Lowry Park Zoo staff shirt, came to their house to tell them they were creating an animal preserve, a place where the animals wouldn't be bothered by people.

The Parrys liked the idea of living next to a quiet animal preserve.

Then the monkeys escaped.

"I was shocked," Parry said. "The park is really a tourist attraction. In the guise of being neighborly, they lied to us."

Now neighbors wonder how they can feel safe with cheetahs and rhinos as neighbors when Safari Wild workers can't even contain monkeys.

Mary Morrow, who lives on 40 acres of land next to Safari Wild, said she worries the attraction will ruin the quiet rural neighborhood. Until a reporter knocked on her door this week, the Morrows hadn't had an unscheduled visitor in more than 20 years, she said.

"To me, it was rude that they never even talked to us," said Morrow, whose family members have spotted signs of the monkeys on their land. "We had no idea that all of this was going on. It's changed my whole life."

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at bhelgeson@tampatrib.com.

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