Zoo launches its largest attraction yet

The San Diego Zoo will start work this week on what will be its largest attraction to date, a $68 million Africa-centric exhibit populated with a wide variety of animals, reptiles, birds and plant life, along with a special habitat dedicated to penguins.

Located on the northern side of the zoo, the new exhibit will transform what is now a steep canyon area that at one time was the home of 1930s-era grottos and enclosures into a much more easily traversed, switchback-style path that will lead visitors through various plant and animal exhibits.

Dwarf crocodiles, a spurred tortoise, baboons, vervet monkeys and lemurs, and an African leopard will be among the new inhabitants of Conrad Prebys Africa Rocks, along with several old-growth trees and other African-native plants, including acacia, aloe, Madagascar ocotillo and palms.

The start of construction, to be celebrated this morning in a special groundbreaking, culminates a years-long fundraising effort that so far has collected $61.5 million from 4,500 donors. The remaining funding still needs to be raised.

Key among the major donors are philanthropist Conrad Prebys, who donated $11 million, local investment mogul Ernest Rady, who contributed $10 million, and Dan and Vi McKinney, who committed $5 million toward a new habitat dedicated to preserving endangered African penguins and breeding center that will be known as Penguin Beach.

Another key focal point of Africa Rocks, which will open in 2017, will be Rady Madagascar Habitat and Falls, the centerpiece of which will be a 65-foot tall waterfall that will cascade down several levels of the attraction.

The current site of Africa Rocks, which has been closed to the public for the last year, previously was home to the zoo’s large cats, snow leopards, jaguars, and hyenas, which already have been moved to other areas of the zoo or are in the process of being relocated.

Before Africa Rocks, the largest zoo project was Elephant Odyssey, which encompasses 7.5 acres and cost $45 million.

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Banteng at the San Diego Zoo.  ( / U-T file photo)

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Joanne and Majel, two Sumatran tiger cubs play in the tiger exhibit for the first time at The San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park in January 2011. The two new cubs were born Oct. 5, 2010.   ( / UT File Photo)