This Is NOT Something We Expected to See in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

There is so much to see in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but did you know there’s even more that you CAN’T see?

Welcome to Animal Kingdom!

Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney World park, even though many people feel it’s a half-day park with its lack of attractions. But most of the park’s square mileage is all the land for the animals to roam. While you can see lots of it taking the train to and from Rafiki’s Planet Watch and on Kilimanjaro Safaris, there’s so much left unseen at Animal Kingdom, and we just found out a secret we never knew!

We just learned about a very special collaboration between two parts of Disney World.

It involves two things you’d never expect to go together — baseball and flamingos.

©Disney

The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex is located in Disney Springs and it turns out, baseball clay, which is specially designed to drain water quickly, is helping flamingos in Animal Kingdom build their nests.

A Lesser Flamingo checks in on his egg. (National Geographic/Harrison Cooney)

The baseball clay has been so helpful, in fact, that it’s allowed for lesser flamingos in the park to have an unprecedented breeding season with their taller and better nests. And THAT resulted in the second lesser flamingo chick being born in the park in the past 20 years!

©Disney

The Tampa Bay Rays even played part of their training season at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex this year, meaning that a lesser flamingo technically stood on the same clay as an MLB pitcher — how cool is that?

©Disney

We have cast members Jamie Sincage (Animal Manager at Disney’s Animal Kingdom) and Tommy Evans (Field Manager at ESPN Wide World of Sports) to thank for this collaboration. We can’t wait to hear how this finding continues to help the flamingos and stay tuned to DFB for all the latest Disney news!