October 1, 2004
Yesterday, Keith had the day off, so we thought it would be fun to take the kids to the zoo. All morning, we kept asking Zeke, "Are you ready to go to the zoo and see some animals?" and he'd look thoughtful and say, "Ummm... no. I playing with cars." However, on the grounds that he can play with cars any time he wants, we hauled him off to the zoo anyway.
It was a perfect day for it. Not too many people are at the zoo on Thursdays in late September. (Every single person who was there, however, had kids in tow.) The weather was sunny but not too hot.
Upon arrival, we checked the map and conferred as to what we should go see first. Keith was keen on seeing the otters and the kangaroos. I didn't want to miss the prairie dogs. Zeke pondered, and then announced, "Elephants!" So our first stop was to the pachyderm enclosure.
Unbeknownst to us, the zoo has a baby elephant right now. It was the very first animal we stopped to look at. They had him indoors, with his mother. At first, I thought the mother was the baby, because she just wasn't as gigantic as I'd imagined an elephant to be, but then I saw the little baby, poking his trunk into a stack of hay, and trotting along happily beside his mom. I cannot tell you how adorable this was. I asked the zookeeper (they probably have a more official-sounding name, but I don't know what it is) how old the baby has to be before he stops following his mother around like that. The zookeeper didn't really answer my question, but did tell me that while the baby will roam away from his mother to some extent in captivity, in the wild he would be stuck to her side like glue, because they would be covering hundreds of miles in the daily search for food. He also told me that elephant pups nurse for several years, so the females only get pregnant once every four or five years or so. Sounds like a pretty smart plan to me.
We're all just monkeys -- I mean, apes -- at heart.
After the baby elephant, we stopped and looked at the gibbons.
Zeke was intrigued by them, although he insisted on calling them "monkeys", probably because he couldn't read the sign on the cage.
I liked watching them groom each other. Their motions while doing this are remarkably similar to the motions that adult humans use when picking lint off each others' sweaters, or fussing with their kids' hair.
They seem so serene...which is how they get you.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped and looked at the bear enclosures. We saw a black bear and a brown bear, but the best exhibit was a couple of grizzly bear cubs. Their mother attacked a man walking his dog in Alaska, back in May, and when she then went on to attack the police who showed up, she was killed. The local authorities tried to rescue the cubs, but were only able to get to one of them. Then the guy who had been walking his dog felt bad, and went and rescued the other one. Both of them wound up at the Columbus Zoo. We stayed and watched them frolic and romp around for awhile. They were very toddler-like in their behavior.
The otters were disappointingly absent. Their little otter run was there, and a sign explaining their habits and food preferences and so forth, but there was not an otter in sight. We hung around for awhile, hopeful, but none ever showed up. I guess they were taking their afternoon siesta.
Next stop: Kangaroos. On our way there, we passed by another gibbon exhibit. This one was much bigger and had lots of nice trees and poles for them to swing from, which they obligingly did. Zeke thought this was pretty cool. We also saw some orangutans swing hand-over-hand on ropes from one tall treehouse-like structure to another one, a few hundred yards away. "Those guys up high," Zeke said.
Mighty Zeke! Grrarrrgh!
Zeke had a great time running around patting all the sheep and goats and shetland ponies. He stood on the gate of one of the sheep enclosures and kept yelling, "Baa! Baa!" at the sheep inside, who was, shall we say, less than impressed.
Boca Burgers?
I'm probably forgetting some of the animals we saw. We did finally reach the kangaroo enclosure, which was way cool. You enter it by these double doors that say, "Keep the roos in! Please let outer doors close before opening inner doors!" We're like, uh, okay, so how exactly close do you get to the kangaroos in here?
Answer: as close as you want to. The kangaroo enclosure has absolutely nothing keeping the kangaroos away from the walking path for humans. The kangaroos were mostly interested in sleeping and occasionally hopping from one shady tree to another, though, so we didn't get all that up close and personal with them.
Before we even left the zoo's parking lot.
Posted by Jan at October 1, 2004 2:48 PM