The San Diego Zoo Safari Park (in case you didn’t know, it’s the former Wild Animal Park) in Escondido sprawls over an 1800-acre expanse chosen for its resemblance to Africa’s most productive wildlife areas. Make no mistake, virtually everything here is artificial. That doesn’t diminish in the least the park’s goal of preserving rare species of plants from around the world — and rare animals, particularly those of the African savannas. More than four decades’ worth of landscape improvements have rendered this less of a “zoo” and more of a safari experience, as the park’s name expresses.