Ralph Helfer
Ralph Helfer (born April 9, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois) is a notable American animal behaviorist, creator of Marine World/Africa USA, and writer of books about animals.
He was born in Chicago and had one sister, Sally. In 1942, his mother left her husband Sam and moved with her children to Hollywood, where they settled in the Green Apartments, one block off Hollywood Boulevard.
In 1955 he purchased a 1,500-acre (6.1 km2) Vasquez Rocks property to train animals, which he called Nature's Haven. He married Toni Ringo in 1963. They had a daughter, Tana Helfer. In 1963 the property was cut in half by the Antelope Valley Freeway. They relocated to Soledad Canyon. They bought 600 acres (2.4 km2) of land to build their new ranch and decided to name it Africa U.S.A. Africa U.S.A. was a training compound and a provider of animals for Hollywood (Clarence, the cross-eyed lion, and Judy the chimp in Daktari, and Ben (originally named Bruno) the bear in Gentle Ben). The compound was also used as location for shows such as Daktari and the original Star Trek episode "Shore Leave."
During these years, Helfer created what he called "affection training", which purported to replace the whip, gun, and chair of the old-school handlers with love, understanding, and respect. Critics state that affection training indeed consisted in surgically modifying (declawing and defanging) the animals and administering sedatives. Ralph Helfer denies this and stated that "this was done to animals that had deformities and were injurious to their health."
In January 1969, Africa U.S.A. was devastated by a powerful storm over Soledad Canyon which dropped large amounts of rainfall in the region. This resulted in severe flooding and mudslides in the canyons. 9 of the 1,500 animals of the ranch were killed by the torrential flooding.
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