Greater Kudu

Greater Kudu

This magnificent animal was photographed at the Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, FL. My daughter and son-in-law decided to take a mini-vacation in South Florida and lucky for me, I was able to join them for a couple days.

We had gone to Busch Gardens in Tampa last Saturday and was very disappointed. Most of the animals were gone, or the exhibits were closed due to the holiday celebration and the crowd with school out was outrageous! There was nothing but long lines everywhere. It took 45 minutes just to get through the line to get our lunch. I expected that, but with most of the animal exhibits gone or closed and the ones that were open behind glass, is a factor for me to cancel my long-running annual pass. I've had it since 1988, and have always enjoyed the park because of the animal exhibits. I think I'll be going one more time just to see if all the exhibits remain closed, then I'm going to cancel my membership. If not, I'll hang on to it for another year or so.

Anyway, back to the Lion Country Safari. This place was only $30/per person to get in, and a great place to go. Families in particular will enjoy it, and it's only 3 hrs. (but well worth the trip) to Loxahatchee from St Petersburg. It starts with a car safari where the animals roam free, and the humans are locked in their cars. They give everyone a CD to play as you drive through at 8mph explaining what each animal is and a little bit about them. After the safari, you park your car and go into an amusement park where you can feed several animals, a petting zoo, and fish feeding. From there, you can walk over to the water park. It's small, but one can easily spend several hours there. The amusement park and water park are designed for kids, but we adults enjoyed it as well.

The photo is of one of the animals from the safari. It is a Greater Kudu. They are from Southern and Eastern Africa and the second largest Antelope. They weigh up to 690 lbs. Box sexes have the spinal crests, but only the males have a beard. Their horns curl around 2 1/2 times and average 4 ft long. The are herbaceous eating many kinds of leaves, herbs, fallen fruits, vines, tubers, succulents, flowers, and sometimes varied with a little new grass.

This one came quite close to the car allowing me to get a great shot of him.