The View From the Zoo
This past week, we had some friends visit us at The Aerie for a too-brief visit but there was still a good collection of quality San Diego vacationing. On Sunday, we all trooped over to the beach for a great day (even if it was a little over-cast and breezy).
Monday, our guest family went over to Sea World to visit with Shamu and yesterday, we all went to the San Diego Zoo. For me, this was a nice bookend on the day the Beloved and I had to the Wild Animal Park a couple of weeks ago.
It was a gorgeous day at the Zoo and we arrived pretty early to try and beat both the heat and the crowds. Tourism seems like it’s off a bit around here, because it was a pretty light crowd for what is usually a pretty busy place. As always, I just loved walking around – watching the animals and have them watch us, too.
Going early is good, because more of the animals are active before they get onto some serious settling down in the heat of the midday and afternoon.
One of the hard parts for me is seeing the great apes. I mean, I know they are being slaughtered in their homelands in Africa, but the gorillas always seem so sad when I see them.
There was also a lot of munching to be found – camels eating hay and polar bears eating carrots.
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Comments
Looks Like a great day. I really have to go out more myself!
Polar bears eat carrots?
Who knew? I'll go to bed less stupid tonight, as the French say.
My cat does that meerkat thing.
Great pictures - I especially like the polar bear one. Something about the color, or light, or something...it's nice.
The other day I was downstairs in our Bound Periodicals section of the library. I'm never able to resist the temptation to take a look at our oldest issues, and I came across a Nature magazine article from the early 1900s about animals in captivity--whether they were happy or not. I skimmed the beginning and end of the article, and the consensus seemed to be "hey, they look pretty happy to me, and they probably love not having to compete for food or survival!" I wish I'd made a note so I could go back and read the whole thing--I felt equal parts amused, touched, and saddened by what I did read.
It usually bums me out to see animals in captivity--especially those as intelligent and expressive as apes--but I still love seeing them at all. What I can't handle though is the pacing that a lot of the larger predators tend to do. :(
Okay, didn't mean to be such a Debbie Downer. I loved the meerkats when we visited the San Diego Zoo! I have so many great pictures of their antics and poses!
Would you believe that there is someone in our house that DOESN'T think meerkats are cute and endearing?
And I think I know why that someone doesn't love meerkats. But did you explain to Penny that they're not ACTUAL cats, it just SOUNDS like they're felines? ;)