28 April 2008

Yes, another zoo post. This one from early March after the season's opening.

I'd been trying to get a picture of this pig for some time now, but he kept evading me by being inside a small building. Got him this time, taking a nap in some type of undersized kiddie pool:



A sea lion looking a little more wild like its namesake, but in actuality, just yawning:



These monkeys were very interesting. The baby pictured here was playing with some twigs on the ground. Unfortunately this particular breed of primate is less modest and in the interest of family-friendliness, which you all certainly know has been one of my highest objectives, besides the use of sarcasm, I have censored the "Naughty Bits":



The ever fierce Rock Hyrax. You can see his surprisingly sharp teeth in this picture. He may look like a sausage roll, but he's got a mean streak a mile wide! That's no ordinary rodent!



A pair of....oh, I forget. Kudu, antelope, something hoofed and African.



A sleeping duiker:



This one got my pulse up a bit. While there was glass between us, I managed to get a very close shot of a gorilla, who was sitting with his back towards me...not a whole lot of zoom here, he wasn't very far away at all. Here he is climbing off the rock and starting to turn towards me:



Quite a stunning sight, as he walked towards me, then walked away.



The ugly but amusing warthog:



A trio of cheetahs almost outside of view. They tend to be slightly less social than the other big cats, and are quite often hiding from zoo visitors. Can't say that I really blame them.



Lastly, some lemurs.

4 comments:

Percussivity said...

What is the deal with the zoo funding cuts??? They want make our town a bigger tourist attraction right? Well what is one of the most common things most tourists look for in a city? A ZOO!!! hhhhhhhhhhhh... (end of rant)

SQLFunkateer said...

My inner libertarian digs the Funk's deep cuts to spending, but this is the one area I feel the sting.

Some cuts are understandable, and the Zoo administration whining about how just a small percentage reduction in city funding was going to force them to close was annoyingly dramatic. Like a whiny kid saying, if I can have [that], I don't want anything at all!

SQLFunkateer said...

But what you say is true...license plates at the zoo are unusually diverse. It is one of the few things that occur to out of state visitors to do. I mean, what else is there...the Plaza? What, you don't have shopping areas where you come from?

Percussivity said...

Well speaking personally, when I visit a big city it is always something I am interested in... zoos and/or aquariums with museums as a close second.