THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506210666
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Blazing away on TV as I left Tuesday morning was word that Walt Disney Co. will build in Central Florida a Wild Animal Kingdom of beasts that ``ever or never existed.''
The new theme park will be twice as big as Epcot, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner told Bryant Gumbel on the ``Today'' show.
I have no idea how large Epcot is. For a long time, I thought Epcot was a cousin of the apricot, a pallid relative sold in health food shops.
Only until friends began returning from a spell there, as from a far country, did it dawn on me that Epcot was a place and not a fruit.
Eisner said further that the new kingdom would be four times the size of the Magic Kingdom.
Why is it, I why-is-it-ed to myself, that Eisner doesn't give us the acreage of this fantastic new park?
The park will have high-tech thrill rides and three themed lands: Africa, featuring a mock safari; the Beastly Kingdom, focusing on mythological creatures; and Dinoland, staging automated dinosaurs.
Eisner left the impression that the African segment for live animals would harbor endangered species. I exulted in that prospect.
Any time anybody is setting aside land for wildlife to scrabble for survival, I'm elated.
Gumbel mentioned environmental activists who are protesting the penning up of animals; but Eisner cited three conservation groups advising Disney.
Eisner said Disney is locating another park in Florida because land there is inexpensive and the designers can replicate in the mild climate an African jungle, if need be.
Enthralled, I envisioned the new park covering at least 2,000 acres, about the size in Virginia Beach of Seashore State - Oh, ye gods, what am I saying! - FIRST LANDING State Park.
Then, at work, I found on the national news wire the disclosure that the Wild Animal Kingdom would consist of 500 acres.
Divide that total into four parts, and you see that each would claim 125 or so acres.
Why, up in the country, during the Depression, we had free-range chickens foraging 100 acres.
When dark clouds brooded on the horizon, Aunt Dote went into a frenzy, her shawl flying in the wind as if she were the very spirit of the storm, running down those chickens and flinging them upon those of us huddled in the dark storm cellar.
Why, 500 acres, spread three or four ways, is a pittance.
The Virginia Zoo, with headquarters in Lafayette Park, has 500 acres at St. Brides in Chesapeake for development into the Animal Survival Center for white rhinos and the like.
The North Carolina Zoological Park in Ashboro has 1,000 acres. The San Diego Wild Animal Park has 2,200 acres.
Most of the species evident in Florida will be, I expect, the human kind, standing in line. by CNB