Many students make the short trip north to visit the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium each year, and to many this is as close to a safari as they will ever come; but there is a place they can go to get the feel of Africa, and for a small fee, they can see wild animals.

For the past 10 years, a nature preserve called the Wilds has been evolving on a 10,000 acre plot of reclaimed strip-mining land in southeastern Ohio. The nature preserve is the result of a cooperative effort by Ohio’s zoos, the Ohio Departments of Natural Resources and Development and the private sector.

David Blumer, director of the Wilds, said the Wilds’ first spawning came in the 1970s, when the directors of Ohio’s zoos went to the governor looking for a facility that they could grow feeding materials and possibly manage a couple of herds of animals on.

“Ohio has this unusual feature,” Blumer said. “It has more major zoos per unit area than anywhere else in the country. (The directors) went to the governor and said if we’re going to be this cultural and tourism resource for the state, we need some state involvement.”

The state provided the first funding for the Wilds in 1984, which was quickly matched by private businesses. In addition, the Central Ohio Coal Company, a subsidiary of American Electric Power Company, donated 9,154 acres.

Over the next few years, the Wilds became an international conservation and research center, but its problems were not behind them.

Two years ago, the facility was facing a major financial hardship, and its board of directors decided to reorganize and change how the Wilds did business.

“We had been an organization that was soaring programmatically,” Blumer said. “We were doing great stuff on a shoe-string budget and working all over the world and getting involved in key and important issues, but it was all based on a business model that was failing.”

The Wilds’ board decided to continue to do the things it did better and different than other zoological organizations and cut programs that duplicated efforts of other institutions.

“We had to really trim the tree back and focus on growing those branches,” Blumer said.

Blumer said the Wilds entered into a contract with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium to efficiently provide many of the services that the organization trimmed from its infrastructure.

The Wilds uses educational programs, animal management strategies and habitat management methods to satisfy its hefty conservation goals.

Al Parker, conservation educator at the Wilds, runs camp programs used to educate children in nature and conservation.

Parker said the camps provide children with education on wildlife conservation, habitat conservation and practical skills.

“Most of all that revolves around immersing them in the environment, instead of sitting in a classroom,” Parker said.

Parker said the children get involved in real-world scientific studies involving native animals by measuring habitat, observing animals and capturing, marking and releasing animals.

“We can’t have kids out there playing with rhinos, so we deal with pond turtles and snakes and some of the native animals here,” Parker said.

Steve Shurter has been the director of animal management at the Wilds for two years. He is responsible for all the daily needs of the 23 species of animals at the Wilds.

Shurter said he and his staff are responsible for feeding, watering and sheltering the animals and are responsible for the safety of both the animals and visitors to the animal enclosures.

“We go through 30 to 40 tons of hay and 10 tons of grain per year,” Shurter said. “In the summer, they’re grazing naturally on the pastures, so a lot of the animals are able to use that as their sole food source.”

Shurter said 95 percent of the animals at the Wilds have come to the Wilds from zoos.

Nicole Cavender, director of restoration ecology at the Wilds, works on programs that study the disturbed ecosystem at the Wilds. The land the Wilds sits on was hardwood forest before the coal was mined.

“After reclamation, it’s really a totally different system than what it was,” Cavender said.

Cavender is working on a project to create prairie at the Wilds. Cavender said she wants to create a more diverse landscape by creating prairie through the non-native exotic grasses that were planted after mining was completed in the area.

“This will provide habitat for wildlife and will help accelerate restoration of soil structure,” Cavender said.

She said building prairie is just the first step at rebuilding the ecostructure of the area.

The Wilds opens on weekends beginning tomorrow and offers a couple different tour packages.

The Wilds Safari is a guided tour where guides provide information about the animals that are encountered and explain how the animals are important to the conservation work done at the Wilds.

Guests can get an in-depth look at the facilities of the Wilds in a guided tour, The Wilds at Work. Information about the work done at these facilities is provided by the Wilds’ staff.

The tours cost $12 for adults, and if both tours are taken the same day, the second tour is half price.

More information about the Wilds including directions, tour packages and the work done at the facility can be found at the Wilds’ Web site at www.thewilds.org.