My Dad recently found himself in Florida for family reasons out near the Gulf and I found myself on a quest for somewhere outdoors we could meet up for a couple hours. I had a vague memory of a wildlife park near there from when I was a kid, and sure enough, Homosassa Springs was a twenty-minute drive from where he was staying.
Unfortunately, it was about an hour and forty minutes for me, so I got up entirely too early on Thursday to drive out there to meet my Dad at Homosassa Springs at 9:00 am. I am proud to say I made it by 9:10 am despite the horrendous traffic.
I hit the parking lot and I was surprised Homosassa Springs was on such a main road. There was a building and a large manatee statue that I forgot to take a picture of. My Dad told me he thought it was closed, and sure enough the building was closed, but something didn’t feel right. At the other end of the parking lot was a sign that read “Pepper Creek Trail – Walk to Park Here”.
Well, alright then.
It wound up being a little over a mile, which was fine, except we found another parking lot at the end. I guess there’s normally trams that aren’t running right now. So, if you want to go to the Wildlife Park without walking a mile, search for the West Entrance at 9350 W Fishbowl Dr, Homosassa, FL 34448 instead of the one on the website.
Whoops!
It took a little longer than we expected, but we found it, the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and made our way into the building. I went to buy tickets and was given a map. All of the exhibits were available for viewing, but the indoor attractions like the Discovery Center and Underwater Viewing were closed. The animal interactions were also not running. I was more disappointed about the Underwater Viewing than anything else.
As soon as we entered the park, there was a cool manatee fountain in front of us, and a big beautiful body of water with lots of fish in it. Pretty, but not necessarily exciting.
A little further down and around the corner, we found the creature I was most excited for: Lu the hippopotamus! I remembered seeing this hippo when I was fourteen and we visited Homosassa Springs, and as a former Jungle Cruise Skipper, I have a love/hate relationship with hippos.
Lu was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1960, and came to Homosassa Springs in 1964 as part of Ivan Tors Animal Actors. When the State of Florida purchased the former attraction in 1989, the animals came with it. Lu was declared an honorary Florida citizen and has been living at the park ever since. He is the only animal on display not native to Florida. I do wonder if he gets lonely, but he’s the oldest hippo in America and he gets a birthday party every year, so he’s got a pretty great life.
There was a map next to Lu. There was a split in the path, and I was eager to see the manatees, so we crossed the bridge and made our way to the left. A keeper walking by joked, “Hippo rides start at ten and swimming with the alligators is at eleven.” We chuckled.
Before we got to the manatees though, we encountered some turkey and really friendly deer. The deer came rushing up to the fence to see us.
Next up was the manatee hospital area, which thankfully didn’t have any manatees in it, but I recognized the technology of the pen from SeaWorld’s Inside Look weekends. It’s a floor that rises to lift the manatee out of the water so they can treat it.
The manatee pool is a fenced in area of the Homosassa River. They have a section that’s quartered off for the manatees that live there, and then the rest of the river is open to wild manatees. I found the “manatee salad bar” particularly adorable, but there was no lettuce at the moment so no “munch munch” going on. (I call manatees “munch munches” because they munch lettuce all day.) In fact, the three manatees in the fenced area were asleep. However, we quickly realized behind us that were dozens of manatees! I had never seen so many in my life! I had originally said I thought there were at least forty and Dad said there were a lot more than that. It was hard to see them well in the water, and harder to count, but if I had to guess there were close to a hundred.
Part of the river was roped off and most the manatees were inside the ropes. On the outside, there were a couple of boats with people snorkeling and some people in kayaks. I’ve always wanted to do a manatee swim and now I want to do one even more!
My favorite was I saw a mom AND a baby. I’ve seen a lot of orphans at SeaWorld and it was nice to see a baby that wasn’t an orphan together with its mom.
I could have watched the manatees all day, but Dad had plans with other family members, so we moved on. We followed the pathway and found ourselves back where we came in, but I knew there were animals we hadn’t seen yet, so we went back to where Lu was and took the path to the right this time. I now realize if we’d taken the path to the right in the first place, we would have made one big circle and cut down on our walking.
Next to Lu was a big pond with some gators in it, or “Murder Puppies” as my friend Morgan calls them. I was surprised how few gators I was seeing. I guess I’m used to Gatorland where they pile them in.
More exciting was up on the right: the red wolf exhibit! I called it a Fiona and Dad said, “I think that’s a little different than Fiona.”
“Well, wrong species of wolf, but she was raised with them, so it counts.”
Jay raised Fiona, our Siberian Husky, with wolf pups at Parker Wolf Sanctuary as part of an experimental animal program while he worked there. They were testing if it would pass on more dog like traits to the wolf pups, well, the answer is you just get a really weird dog, but we love her. Apparently, my Dad had never heard this story, so I happily filled him in.
Next to the wolf exhibit was the fox exhibit, and they were a little harder to see, but they were still out.
Our next exhibit was Fancy the Fox Squirrel. Apparently, they’re an endangered species of squirrel in Florida. I’d never seen one before, but she was adorable, even if she was asleep.
Across from Fancy was a giant pond with a bunch of giant birds: pelicans and storks and flamingos and all sorts of terrifying things. Welcome to Florida, land of giant birds. Birds may not seem scary, until they’re between your car and your front door. When you look at it, it’s like it’s a slightly less deadly velociraptor looking back.
One of the pelicans was missing a wing though, so I was happy it had somewhere safe to live. We kept walking to the birds of prey section. The Bald Eagle only had a partial left wing and he was kind of hopping around instead of flying. He was also calling to another eagle who was answering him, so I’m a little curious if they have more than one or if he was talking to a wild one.
Next, was a black bear who was completely conked out taking a nap in the sun. Absolutely adorable.
Past the bear were the panthers. There were two of them in two separate pens. One was sitting in the sun and the other one was pacing.
“Wow, those are a lot bigger than I thought!”, Dad said.
All I could think was I hope I never see one while out running. Unlikely, but there was a black bear two neighborhoods over from us a few weeks ago. I’m less afraid of bears. I grew up near the Smokies.
There was a cool memorial for one of the former employees in front of the panther exhibit too. Just past the panther was the bobcat pen, which was the only animal we didn’t see the whole day. I think it might have been asleep in its little burrow, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
The river otter was asleep on a little island in the middle of his pond though, so we got a good look at him!
The reptile center was closed, which I was perfectly fine with. There was an outdoor enclosure that had a turtle we couldn’t see and an adorable burrowing owl. I think it’s the same kind from the book Hoot.
Our final stop was the back of the deer exhibit, but they were nowhere to be seen. They were probably at the front visiting with people like they were with us earlier.
We walked past Lu one more time on the way out, and stopped to look at some of the history of the park photos in the building.
Rather than us both walking the mile back to the cars, I volunteered to go get my car and drive back to get Dad. It was a chilly morning for Florida and neither of our bad knees were happy with how much walking we’d done. Admittedly I had planned for the walk around the park, but not the trail to and from the park. (The website says it’s .75 miles, but my phone put it at 1.1 miles, I don’t know which one is right.)
I had to throw a bunch of stuff in my backseat so Dad could even get in the car, and I quickly drove him back to his car. What had taken me fifteen minutes on foot took less than five even with red lights.
It was hard to say goodbye without hugging, but at least we’d gotten to spend some time together.
Honestly, other than them having the wrong address on their website, I have no complaints about this little adventure. If there was no parking at the Wildlife Park entrance, I totally wouldn’t have minded, but there was no reason for the website to only list the other address. It’s not a long walk, but it’s also longer than I was prepared for. There wasn’t any signage for how long the path was either. If I’d known part of my day included a hike, I would have brought more water.
I do recommend going early like we did. Almost all of the animals were out and active.
Cost: Admission to Homosassa Springs is $13 per person.
Value: Without the presentations and the underwater viewing, $13 feels a tiny bit steep. If everything was open, I would have given Homosassa Springs a 10/10.
Duration: I got there just after 9:00 am, and I was driving away after finishing just before 11:30 am, so with the walk we there about two hours. However, I could have sat in front of the manatees all day. I left my house around 7:00 am and got back around 1:30 pm after stopping to pick up food on the way home, so Homosassa Springs is a bit of a drive from the Orlando area, but it was nice to spend some time with so many natural Florida residents.
Add Ons: There’s a snack bar and a gift shop.
