I went to the city zoo to check out for myself the Siberian Tiger's enclosure. It was about 19 degrees and the tiger was out pacing around his living area. He seems acclimated to his environment and I feel pretty confident that he's not going to climb out of his place. The lowest fence segment is 15 feet high with in-facing fence extensions at the top. The few other people who braved the elements seemed sure of their safety, too. On my way back to the warm areas of the park, I stopped to visit the two polar bears in their concrete enclosure. I'm less sure of the security of their area. They don't have the in-facing extensions to the top of the walls that the tiger pen has. The bears seem well fed and reasonably content, but they are slightly higher on the food chain than my favorite primate, so I didn't stay long. And it was cold.
I had a nice brisk walk past the golf course and over to the lake and back to where my car was parked, maybe a couple of miles total. I burned some calories walking and more trying to keep my toes from freezing. Tomorrow is expected to dip below zero. January begins.
Google map street view of the McNeeley Conservatory at Como Park. It's a nice tool to see what things looked like sometime last summer. Credit to Google.
Is there a blog theme for January first?
Happy New Year, 2008.
