It’s the Great Indoors

So it’s come to this: We are so pressed for time, so detached from the natural world, that a corporation is packaging the great outdoors in one-hour chunks and selling it at the mall.

American Wilderness Experience, the latest entry into the site-based entertainment boom, opens its first outlet Friday at the Ontario Mills Mall. A little bit wild animal park, a little bit natural history museum, American Wilderness hopes to cash in on that most broad demographic: the whole family.

The centerpiece of American Wilderness is a series of five “biomes,” indoor replicas of real ecosystems. Ogden Entertainment, the company that owns American Wilderness, has done the plaster-of-Paris cave and papier-mache tree one for the better.

Here, real water flows through a stream in the redwood forest, a scene enhanced with dappled lighting. A bracing wind blows through the High Sierra while bobcat snarls and other animal sounds come through hidden speakers. They’ve gone so far as to fill each biome with appropriate odors. (Pleasant ones.)

“A total immersion experience is what we’re after,” said Billy Warr, the vice president of operations for Ogden Entertainment.

Ogden is a company previously best known for supplying food to airlines and managing entertainment venues. Though it has started to produce Imax films and Broadway shows, American Wilderness is its first move into the potentially lucrative entertainment-retail arena. It’s going in big: The company has committed a reported $100 million to opening the first eight sites. Three more attractions--in Arizona, Texas and Florida--are slated to open in 1998.

American Wilderness is the brainchild of Jonathan Stern, Ogden Entertainment’s senior vice president. Its genesis dates to a trip he took to the Grand Canyon in 1988. Near the entrance to the park, he noticed an Imax movie theater.

“I thought it was pretty interesting that someone would build an Imax theater next to the Grand Canyon, when you have the Grand Canyon right there,” Stern said.

He found out that tourists visiting the rim of the canyon stay an average of only 22 minutes. Only 5% of visitors do more than take in the scenery. But, Stern said, many of them want to know more about the Grand Canyon--and that’s why 800,000 people see the Imax film.

American Wilderness integrates the lessons Stern learned at the Grand Canyon with his experience developing the Grizzly Discovery Center outside Yellowstone National Park--which has a 25-acre fenced bear habitat.

“No matter how high-tech we’re becoming, people still love nature,” said Stern.

American Wilderness will house more than 100 species of animals in its various habitats, including two male bobcats, three harbor seals, a yellow-bellied marmot, kangaroo rats, bats and a coatimundi, or bearcat. A 3,000-gallon tank with artificial kelp forest will have 25 species of fish in the coastal biome. The Yosemite Valley area contains badgers, porcupines, a red-tail hawk and a constantly circulating “river” tank that holds rainbow trout.

All the animals come from zoos or animal rescue shelters, said Suzanne Kirby, the curator of animals. Their habitats have been constructed using standards set up by the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn., and have lighting, air temperatures and humidity set for each species’ needs.

Marsha Wyatt, the supervisor of field services for the Pomona Valley Humane Society, said the people in her office were concerned when they learned about the project. The Humane Society has already fielded a handful of concerned calls from the public as well.

Wyatt has been to the Ontario site twice to examine the animal habitats. “I have to say in all honesty that I’m somewhat impressed,” she said. “These are fairly exceptional environments, both aesthetically and in terms of what the animals need environmentally.”

Legally, American Wilderness had to provide only food, water and a secure cage--the standards put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wyatt said. Instead, they’ve used the correct colors and textures, provided details such as warming rocks and dens.

Outside the biomes, American Wilderness offers a more traditional mall experience: a retail store and a theme restaurant, the Wilderness Grill. The store, called Naturally Untamed, sells such gift items as a Teddy bear made of all recycled fibers ($24.99) and a black shot glass with the words “naturally untamed” on the side ($3.99).

The entrance to the attraction also has a Star Tours-style ride called the Adventure Simulator, which shows action from the point of view of various animals. Ticket packages are available for the large-format UltraScreen theater next door as well.

Stern views a visit to American Wilderness as an educational experience, and he doesn’t find it at all contradictory that one would head to the mall for a taste of the outdoors.

“We’re not trying to say come here instead of going to the coast or the desert,” Stern said. “But let’s face it; if you look at what we’re providing here, how many parents are going to pack their car and drive out into the desert?”

Real nature, after all, offers no guarantees. Harbor seals aren’t always on view at the ocean. And if most people got more than a glimpse of a bobcat, they just might prefer it be behind glass.

BE THERE

American Wilderness Experience, 4557 One Mills Circle, Ontario. The Ontario Mills Mall is near the intersection of interstate highways 10 and 15. Animal attraction open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. $9.95 adults, $8.95 seniors, $7.95 children 11 and under. (909) 481-6604.