Today, I went to the zoo with my friend, Emma. It was really fun!!!
We got there around 10:15AM, and went straight to the new elephant exhibit. They had Willie, the male elephant, on one side and all the females in a separate enclosure. Nearby in the same exhibit, there were meerkats (whose babies are called "meerkat pups" not "meerkittens" as I had hoped) and a snake named Regis that we got to pet. He was squishy.
Next we walked over to the Australia exhibit to see the koala and tree kangaroo. They were so cute!!!! Emma and I found it very difficult not to reach over, put them in our bags, and make a swift exit. After Australia, we walked up a walkway to the Primate, Cats, and Aquatics area (if you couldn't tell, that means gorillas, cats, and fish, as the signpost so kindly told us).
Up there, we saw cheetahs which were very muscular and graceful outside, and then we went into the PCA building. We started with the fish. There were so many different kinds!!! They seemed to like Emma a lot. I decided that I liked the yellow spotted stingray and would enjoy a poster of them. They look so cool!!!!!!! There was a HUGE grouper in the tank with a few kinds of sharks and really neat tropical fish that had split tails.
The other side of the building had the primates and cats. The cats were black footed cats, and they were so tiny and adorable. They were sleeping and looked like a cross between a housecat and a cheetah.
The most remarkable primate was the Gibbon. It was bipedal and had such long arms. Watching it walk and climb was so cool. We also saw three different kinds of lemur, an elephant shrew, baboons that looked like Norweigan trolls, howler monkeys, and spider monkeys.
The squirrel monkeys were really cool. They were tiny and cute, and they were eating when we walked by. The one at the salad bowl was digging around for the bits he liked. It was like he was saying, "screw this lettuce, I want the bugs!"
After the PCA building, we picnicked, and then saw the gorillas. They were smelly and kind of sad looking. We then walked back down to the lower zoo and went to the giraffes. They were doing a training session, and we got to feed a giraffe named Grace. They were being classically conditioned to be near humans. I held out a piece of lettuce and Grace grabbed it with her tongue. It was such a special experience!!!
We continued the walk up to the wolves and bears. We saw the wolves and a bald eagle. I got a really good picture of the eagle! Then we saw reindeer, bactrian camels, a polar bear, and sea lions. On the way out, we stopped to see the rhino and zebra.
When deciding if we needed to see anything else, we stopped at the info desk. The guy told us that the baby grizzly bears were napping and the hippo has "retired." We couldn't tell if "retirement" was a euphemism for death, but it doesn't really matter because we couldn't see it either way.
I really like the zoo. It's fun to see animals that I can't see every day. It reminds me how amazing the world is and the importance of conservation (and not just because of the environmental propaganda throughout the zoo). It was a really great day.
Today is awesome because of spending time with Emma and feeding the giraffe at the zoo.
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