Rhinos live on an Ohio strip mine

The Wilds near Cumberland, from the air, as it looked as a working strip mine in 1981, and as bare ground in the U.S. Geological Survey's lidar. The rolling hills where rhinos, giraffes and Przewalski's horses graze are a strip mine: long cut walls, benches and spoil left by the coal shovels. Much of the land was dug by Big Muskie, the largest single-bucket digging machine ever built, whose bucket held 220 cubic yards, which worked from 1969 to 1991. Central Ohio Coal donated the land in 1984, and The Wilds opened in 1994 on about 9,000 acres of reclaimed mine.

Have you been to The Wilds, or seen Big Muskie's bucket?

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Sources:
- The Wilds: 9,154 acres of reclaimed coal-mine land donated by Central Ohio Coal Co. in 1984; open to the public 1994 (Wikipedia, The Wilds)
- Big Muskie: Central Ohio Coal (AEP); 220 cu yd bucket, the largest single-bucket digging machine ever created; 1969-1991; dismantled 1999; The Wilds was created from land it stripped (Wikipedia, Big Muskie)