Journey by Skyfari or take an escalator ride from Cat Canyon to a plot of land atop the world-famous San Diego Zoo that depicts what animal life was like here 12,000 years ago. This 7.5-acre, $45 million Elephant Odyssey features living relatives — like elephants, lions and jaguars — of the species that once roamed Southern California. Experience an active mock tar pit and fossil dig with interpretive volunteers. This exhibit offers the concept of what once lived here, establish their extinction and what may have happened to them. See life-size statues of a mammoth family, a ground sloth and a saber-toothed cat for comparisons with their living counterparts. Some of those counterparts might also be in danger of going the way of their Pleistocene ancestors. The California condor, once on the brink of extinction, did make a comeback. “With the construction of Odyssey, we tried to bring to life a knowledge of what was here when humans first arrived,” said project creator and coordinator Ed Lewins, who also serves as a paleontologist. “Everything there on exhibit has a counterpart to that period.” Fossil research suggests that Columbian mammoths and saber-toothed cats roamed the area, and teratorn birds with 12-foot wingspans soared above. “Yes, fossils have been found in San Diego County,” he said. “Our focus was on Southern California.” Lewins did his research at the Page Museum and LaBrea tar pits in Los Angeles, Anzo Borrego and the San Diego Natural History Museum. “At the start, six years ago, there were just four of us sitting around a table,” he said. The ranks swelled as all the parts were put in place. It is called Odyssey because it is literally an odyssey through time. During the Pleistocene epoch, North America was alive with a wealth of animals unmatched today on this continent. Herbivores like the large-headed llama, dwarf pronghorn, ground sloth and the mammoth once grazed and browsed. Saber-toothed cats and American lions were carnivores that dominated their territories. Eagles and teratorns soared, scavenged and hunted throughout the area. “The elephants (here) are a counterpart of the Colombian mammoth,” Lewins said. “The woolly mammoth was further north. The jaguars are cousins to the saber tooth cats. But the big mystery is the mammoth being here. “At the end of the ice age — one of the terminal periods — there were 34 mega species we lost.” Scientists have different theories of what happened over a couple thousand years or a couple 100 years. Probably a combination of many things. “Extinction is a natural occurrence. Species come and go,” Lewins said. “Yet, depending on a theory you subscribe to, it could be hunters, climate change or a comet explosion. But we don’t have a crater.” The flora and fauna here is basically the same, but they might have found Northern California, just below San Francisco, a cooler and wetter environment. A recent “60 Minutes” TV segment featured DNA work being done with wooly mammoths for potential cloning. “They were northern species and there are excellent remains that were frozen,” said Lewins, who has been with the zoo 20 years. “There are full body parts. “Recently they completed an entire DNA sequence of the woolly mammoth. The plan is to work with African elephants to create another woolly. Our elephants are not a whole lot different.” Lewins was asked if cloning would be a method of correcting the problem of endangered animals. “Where it goes is kind of debatable and would it be the wisest thing to do?” he replied. “How would it affect breeding and survival further on down the line. The general consensus is, ‘Let’s preserve what we have.’”