But they're probably not going to ride Lion Country Safari more than twice, at most. If someone comes back to the park, as zillions do every year, they're going to ride the roller coaster 10 times. Why get rid of an attraction that drew 15 million visitors? Because its "life cycle" had expired, Mechem said. Kings Island and Kings Dominion animals were donated in 1994 to what was then North America's largest wild animal complex. The animals ended up back with Reece at his next job, managing a 14-square-mile animal preserve called the Wilds southeast of Zanesville. In 1993, a year after Reece left, Kings Island closed Wild Animal Habit. Wild Animal Habitat was the prime area to go into to provide more space for rides," Reece said. "The park was getting filled (with visitors). Betsy Dresser to save endangered bongos in Kenya in the early 1990s.Ībout that time, park officials were discussing closing the $2 million animal attraction to add rides as Kings Island's annual attendance continued to swell. Kings Island staffers also were part of the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) effort by the zoo's Dr. Reece helped form the Cincinnati Wildlife Research Federation partnership with Kings Island, the Cincinnati Zoo and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Sometimes they would kick up mud on it, or it would get flooded. Animals "would get close to the track, or jump the track. Sustaining the sensitive electrical connections along the monorail track also posed problems. We put on a nominal fee to slow down the crowd a little bit," said Reece, 72, of Boynton Beach, Fla. "At the time, everything in the park was no charge. Kings Island also began charging monorail riders – first a quarter, and eventually $1 – to reduce crowds on the ride. Under Reece, security was improved with new electronic gates while reducing the animal population, which was nearing 400. That baboon incident – and a lion fatally mauling a Lion Country Safari ranger who got out of his jeep for an unknown reason inside the habitat in 1976 – persuaded Taft executives to take over day-to-day management.
"It was a classic story of a company that thought it knew what it was doing – and they literally made monkeys out of us." "We had 50 mean baboons roaming Warren County," said Charlie Mechem, former Taft Broadcasting chairman, in an interview last year. It took a week to round them up – and then they escaped again. The baboons leaped to freedom jumping on the backs of fellow baboons huddled at the base of the fence.
Two years later, 50 baboons escaped over the two fences to the embarrassment of Taft Broadcasting executives. She was found dehydrated in heavy underbrush. Less than three months after the opening, a 2-year-old female lion escaped. Visitors also saw tigers, rhinos, elephants, hippos, giraffes, monkeys, ostriches, zebras, baboons, leopards and other animals from around the world. More than 25 lions were brought in for the 1974 opening by Lion Country Safari, a third-party vendor with animal parks near West Palm Beach and Atlanta. Taft Broadcasting, which built Kings Island, also opened a similar attraction at the sister Kings Dominion park near Richmond, Va. The monorail entrance was to the right of the current Drop Tower. Most of the time, quite a large percentage of the daily park attendance would ride the monorail," said Bob Reece, the wildlife exhibit director 1977-92. In 20 years, more than 15 million visitors rode the 2-mile monorail through the animal preserve, which also was named Wild Animal Safari and Wild Animal Habitat before it closed in 1993, said Don Helbig, Kings Island public relations manager. The attraction opened in 1974, the park's third year, on space used today for Flight of Fear, Firehawk and the new Banshee (where the Son of Beast also once stood). In the early years of Kings Island, visitors could see more than 300 animals at the old Lion Country Safari – and sometimes hear about them roaming Warren County after their escape from the 100-acre wildlife preserve.
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