For a Tuesday in December it was a pretty nice day. I needed my exercise and the required quota of full spectrum photons, so I went to the zoo to see some animals. Going to the zoo in December is decidedly different than going in the summer. There are not many visitors and virtually no children. Plus there are not many animals that are acclimated to the cold, so most of them are inside. Today in the cold I saw two polar bears, a bison, some sort of goat, the tiger you see below, a cougar and the two timber wolves, Denali and Cheyenne. It was also an interesting time because the staff and whatever volunteers that are there are bored and/or lonely and will talk to odd strangers trekking through. I had a nice conversation with the wolf keeper. She was feeding the two wolves their afternoon snack. It looked like raw animal organs, but meat for sure. She said that it was horse meat. The female wolf doesn't like people and shies away from contact (thus the name Cheyenne or Shy Anne?). The male, however, is cooperative and will allow medical exams and even allows blood sample to be drawn. He' seems to be named after the US national park in Alaska of the same name. The wolf worker said that the male weighs about 125 pounds, but they aren't sure what Cheyenne weighs because she won't get close enough for anyone to weigh her. It was a pleasant chat uninterrupted by any other visitors. When the pieces of meat had all been tossed over the fence piecemeal to the canines, she went back to her chores. I thanked her and went to find the gorillas.
In the primate house, I chatted with a zoo volunteer and a zoo keeper. They were not busy and were willing to share some info about the big apes. The zoo has been bringing in quite a bit of money since they instituted the practice of asking for a two dollar donation at the gate. They have collected so much money that they are building new quarters for the polar bears and after that a better place to house the monkeys and apes. They have three mature gorillas and a couple of orangutans who seem to need more sunlight and some video games to keep them active. Apparently they have enrichment activities for the apes on Thursday mornings to try to keep them entertained and healthy. Last week a woman brought a harp to play for them, and they seemed to really like the music. They were jockeying with each other to get closer to the harpist, who was safely on the other side of a barred door. It must have been an odd sight.
The zoo is an interesting place to visit, even in December. I could get used to retirement.
