Salisbury opens Giraffe Ranch park in Dade City

Lex Salisbury, the former director of the Lowry Park Zoo who quit amid accusations he used zoo resources to develop his own wildlife park in Polk County, has opened Giraffe Ranch near Dade City and is charging $59 for a 90-minute tour.

The tours are on four-wheel-drive safari vehicles through the 46-acre ranch north of Dade City, off U.S. 301.

The ranch has been owned by Salisbury for 10 years. Besides the standard Florida fare of cattle and horses, visitors can see giraffes, zebras and other animals from Asia, Africa and the Americas, according to the ranch's Web site.

Other animals include Austrian Haflinger horses and Irish Dexter cattle. The Web site said the ranch has one of the largest herds of Dexter cattle in Florida.

"Giraffe Ranch is not a zoo or theme park," the Web site said. "It is a hands-on real working game farm and wildlife preserve where animals have room to roam."

A woman who answered the telephone at the ranch declined to comment this morning. She said Salisbury was unavailable.

The ranch opened as Safari Wild, a 1,000-acre proposed wildlife park owned by Salisbury in Polk County, awaits a state land-use hearing scheduled for next month.

Safari Wild made national news in 2008, when 15 patas monkeys swam a moat and scaled a fence to escape into the nearby Green Swamp. It took months for wildlife officers and Safari Wild trappers to corral the primates. At the time, Salisbury was the Lowry Park Zoo director, drawing a $339,000 salary.

The escaped monkeys prompted an inquiry into Salisbury's role as director of the taxpayer-supported zoo and owner of a for-profit wildlife park in the adjacent county. A city of Tampa audit revealed supplies and animals from Lowry Park Zoo were transferred to Safari Wild while Salisbury was CEO of the zoo. He resigned in December 2008.

Polk growth managers approved the park in October, but state officials appealed the decision, arguing that Safari Wild violates state laws regulating commercial development on environmentally sensitive land. The state objected to the park not obtaining building permits for some structures and its proximity to wetlands.

The Green Swamp feeds four major rivers and is a major aquifer recharge area for much of Central Florida.

Safari Wild's original plans called for a welcome center, hotel cottages and about 1,000 animals from Africa and Asia that customers could see with trained safari guides.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Gary Morse said that the facility is properly permitted and except for an escape of a lemur in 2007, no violations have been reported.

He said some of the stock has been moved back and forth between the Safari Wild property and the Giraffe Ranch. Some of the hoofed stock, which includes giraffes, recently was moved back to Dade City because of rising water levels in Polk County.

"It's all being watched very closely," Morse said.

None of the animals at Giraffe Ranch have any connection with the stock at Lowry Park Zoo, a zoo spokeswoman said.

Giraffe Ranch is accredited through the Zoological Association of America. It is among five small zoos in Florida, which includes Salisbury's Safari Wild.

The ranch is not accredited through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which counts among its 16 wildlife parks and aquariums in Florida, Busch Gardens, Disney's Animal Kingdom, The Florida Aquarium and Miami Metrozoo.

Pasco County zoning administrator Debra Zampetti said there appears to be no conflicts with the zoning.
"If he's in commercial, and if he's in compliance with state law," she said, "there probably is no issue with it."