Safari Wild likened to farm

An attorney for Safari Wild said on Tuesday that the proposed wild animal preserve won't be that much different from farms in the rural area.

Safari Wild is considered an agricultural operation, and the state Department of Community Affairs has no jurisdiction, said Tracy Marshall, who represents the park and owner, former Lowry Park Zoo boss Lex Salisbury.

Safari Wild isn't developing the land, and its operations fall into the farming category, Marshall said at a hearing on whether a Polk County committee improperly gave permission for the preserve, as the DCA contends.

"It's OK for farmers to have cows and pigs and hay, but it's not OK for our clients to do that, and that is fundamentally unfair," Marshall told a state administrative judge who will decide the park's fate.

A neighbor and an environmentalist, interviewed outside the hearing room, said that a preserve with such exotic animals as zebras, monkeys and ostriches doesn't belong in the Green Swamp in northern Polk County. Safari Wild would offer tours of its 258 acres.

"I don't consider that agricultural. I know they're animals, but they're not animals that have been permitted in Florida in all my life. They're just exotic breeds," said Earlow Costine, who owns property about three miles from Safari Wild.

The hearing will last until Friday.

At issue is a development order granted by a Polk land-use review committee that gave Salisbury permission to develop the property. The state DCA contends the development order was improperly granted - without a public hearing - and violates the county's comprehensive growth plan.

The 19-page petition, filed by the DCA in November, seeks an administrative order rescinding the county's permission to develop Safari Wild and to make sure any subsequent permits comply with the comprehensive plan.

Marian Ryan, who has been active with the Sierra Club for 20 years, also spoke against the preserve outside the hearing room.

"My basic concern is that Safari Wild is clearly a commercial use that's trying to insert itself into the agricultural area of the Green Swamp," Ryan said.

Ryan said local, state and federal governments have invested millions of dollars to protect the Green Swamp, and Safari Wild does not fit those preservation efforts.

The main DCA concern is that commercial development in the Green Swamp could damage the wetlands, which serve as a recharge area for the Floridan Aquifer, a major provider of drinking water for West Central Florida.

DCA spokesman James Miller said all the parties will have 10 days after the hearing to submit a proposed recommended order to the judge. After that, the judge will have 20 days to deliver the final judgment. The parties, however, can agree to waive the 10-day deadline, and the process could be delayed considerably if that happens, Miller said.