A Day at the Zoo

When I went on vacation 2 weeks ago, we went to the San Diego Zoo. I hadn't been to a large zoo in a very long time. When I was a kid, we went to the Bronx Zoo in NY probably every year. I took that for granted because I lived there. It is a wonderful zoo, very large with a wide range of animals. I haven't been there in over 20 years. I miss that. While at the San Diego Zoo, I took some wonderful photos of some of the residents there. Eventually I will edit them and add them to my collection of wildlife images for my gift store. Here is a couple of photos from the zoo I have all ready edited.

This guy, my orangutan, was wonderful to watch. I have a series of really good photos of him. He was behind a very thick plexiglass-like window, and I was able to get very close to him because of that. I had a similar experience with a male lion. I was crouched down right beside it and the only thing that separated us was the plexiglass-like window. I had to push all the little kids out of my way to get right in the front of the crowd. I hope you all know I am kidding. I waited my turn like a good adult. I just wanted to push them out of my way. Also, just kidding.

This beautiful boy had his head turned away from the crowd almost the whole time I was watching him, but he turned around once, and it seemed like he looked right at me, then he turned around again. It was awesome. I am conflicted about zoos. The animals are kept out of their natural environments for human learning and pleasure, but many of the species at the zoo are endangered, and if they are not kept out of harms way, could be wiped off the face of the planet. I am conflicted as to what makes for a better existence for these animals. The ideal would be in their natural environments, not being poached, poisoned or killed for sport, and their environments kept in tact and not logged and destroyed. But it would take a lot of consciousness building to get people to see the value these animals add to the planet and our lives in order to have people change their behaviors. These are just some of the things I think about regarding animals and animal rights. We were afraid we would not get to see all we wanted to see, but we made it all around the zoo at a relaxed pace in about 4 hours. It was a really fun day.