In digging up old articles about my favorite TV show as a kid, Daktari, I came across this fascinating story about Africa, U.S.A, once a large complex where exotic animals were trained through “affection training” rather than through fear with the whip and chair. This was back in the 1960s before caring for animals and the environment was fashionable. I direct your attention especially to the end of the article and the heroic efforts of the trainers, saving animals from imminent death because of raging floods. It’s quite amazing.
My thanks to Walter, a longtime Daktari fan from the Netherlands, for sharing this fascinating article about just what Africa, U.S.A. was all about.
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Animal Kingdom, USA
Out in California flourishes a wild-animal domain located just this side of Unbelievable
by Cleveland Amory for TV Guide April 1966
Hollywood these days may or may not be still the Land of Make-Believe. But it boasts at leastone place, Africa, U.S.A., which has even the “natives” rubbing their eyes. “I’ve worked here every day for a year,” Marshall Thompson the star of Daktari told me, “and I still don’t believe it.”
To begin with, like most things in Hollywood, it is actually not…
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Be as One 
Thanks for the fan site, my all time favorite show, it was what can be right about TV, not murder,sex,violence of today. I would like to see all the seasons of Daktari on DVD.
Glad you enjoyed it! I imagine all four seasons will eventually be on DVD someday.