Safari Adventures' hurricane plan concerns neighbors

Robert King fulfilled a dream 20 years ago. He escaped the rigors of city living, bought about 30 acres off Moore Road and started raising cattle.

His ranch sits on the edge of the Green Swamp, which is the source for multiple rivers, streams and wetlands in Florida.

These days King keeps an eye on his cows that are about to deliver calves. He also keeps watch on his neighbor to the northwest, Safari Adventures.

The 260-acre animal park in Polk County, formerly known as Safari Wild, is the brainchild of former Lowry Park Zoo CEO Lex Salisbury and his business partner, St. Petersburg veterinarian Stephen Wehrmann. Their plans, currently on hold because of permitting issues, call for the development to house 1,000 animals and entertain up to 500 paying visitors a day with guided tours, restaurants and a gift shop.

King and other neighbors are wary of how those animals, including cheetahs, will be kept within the confines of the park.

"Recently, we heard about the possibility of large cats being out here and I think probably all of us do have a concern about that," said King.

As hurricane season approaches, the park's plan to deal with the possibility of high winds knocking down fences haven't lessened those worries.

The park's plan entitled "Escaped Animal and Hurricane Protocol" and required by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says no animals will be evacuated during a hurricane threat.

The plan calls for two staff members to stay on site to monitor operations, ride out the storm and perform perimeter fence checks as safety allows. Also, the Polk County Sheriff's Department and neighbors will be contacted in the "unlikely case of an escaped Class I animal." A Class 1 animal includes lions, tigers, elephants and rhinoceros.

According to its plan, "Experience has shown that animals will generally not use a break in the fence to escape their enclosure for at least 24 hours, so animals will stay put in their territories providing ample time to make fence repairs."

That doesn't make King comfortable. He points out that the animal park didn't keep monkeys from escaping.

Safari Adventures made headlines across the nation last year when 15 patas monkeys swam off an island where they were being held and bolted into the Green Swamp. The last surviving monkeys were rounded up in December.

An animal inventory list Salisbury provided the Fish and Wildlife commission in 2007 shows he possessed 10 cheetahs.

"[Salisbury] is licensed for big cats," Daryl Amerson, a commission investigator, said recently. A report by Amerson said there were no big cats at the animal park during a March inspection.

King's grandchildren also live near Safari Adventures, next door to his home.

"We have a great deal of concern about that not only from the possibility of [the animals] escaping like the monkeys escaped and being out loose, [but] there's a great personal danger to the people who live around here not to mention the cattle that are all around here if any of those big cats should happen to get out," King said.

King pointed out that Lowry Park Zoo had a 200-pound Sumatran tiger escape from its cage.

"If I recall correctly, Lowry Park had a cat that got out of the pen due to human negligence or human error some years back," he said.

In 2006, a tiger named Enshalla wandered out of her cage at Lowry Park Zoo when a zookeeper left a door unlatched. Salisbury shot Enshalla with a shotgun, killing it, before the animal could escape into a public area.

"Not only for the children's sake but adults also, I don't think large cats are discriminatory when it comes to eating," he said.

Wehrmann did not return a call to discuss Safari Adventures, however that same day he filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration when News Channel 8's helicopter Eagle 8 flew around the park to update video and pictures.

When contacted by telephone, Salisbury shouted, "Don't ever call me again." Then he hung up.

Salisbury was forced to resign from the taxpayer-supported zoo after it was discovered he used zoo animals and equipment to help build the animal park. A city of Tampa audit found that Salisbury owes the zoo more than $200,000 in animals and materials he used for the animal park.

The city gave a copy of the audit to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and asked that it conduct a criminal investigation.

Polk County Growth Management Director Thomas Deardorff said county approval for Safari Adventures is not a done deal.

"It could be turned down or it could be approved with modifications," he said recently.

Deardorff contends a "welcome barn" was built without the animal park obtaining the proper permits.

"Our building division issued a stop-work order," Deardorff said. "That stop work order remains in effect."

Safari Adventures has had various issues with permits and licenses.

At the time of the monkeys escape in April, Salisbury did not have a valid license to keep them. Records show Salisbury's license to house exotic animals expired April 1, 2008.

According to Amerson, an expired license violation would cost Salisbury a $50 fine. But Amerson didn't write the citation.

"It can be an oversight," Amerson said. "I gave him the benefit of the doubt."

Salisbury did not apply for his license renewal until May 20, 2008.

Last month, water managers issued a fine of nearly $9,000 for unauthorized construction at the animal park. The Southwest Florida Water Management District determined that development on the property degraded water quality.

The for-profit animal park is still awaiting approval of a $2.6 million federal Department of Agriculture loan guarantee to provide long-term financing. It applied for the loan in May 2008.

With the loan guarantee, Safari Adventures plans to refinance existing loans, make improvements to buildings, buy equipment and vehicles and help with transactions.

The loan guarantee will not be approved until the animal park has received its permits and is operational.

A letter, written nearly a year ago, asking state agriculture officials to provide positive comments to the feds about the project paints a fairly rosy picture of the animal park.

For instance, the letter says, "there is no adverse public reaction" to the project.

But neighbors say they were deceived in the early stages of the animal park's development.

"When we first heard that they were having animals out here, we were under the impression and were told it was just the animals that were going to be rotated from Lowry Park Zoo, just to come out here for to rest," King said.

Lois Murphy, another neighbor who lives on Moore Road, says: "We're talking about tour buses and, you know, possibly 500 people per day on that site that could very well change our quiet lifestyle out here," Murphy said.