The One With A Few Hours In The Zoo

A few Sundays ago, RAESB was in town and we went to the Buenos Aires Zoo.

If you know me, you would know that I'm not a fan of zoos. Ever since the days of my youth when I aspired to be a zoologist, zoos seemed to me a prison for animals and wildlife. I am not a supporter of the traditional zoo, where animals are kept in cages and pens, too small for their natural wanderings. These living conditions will permanently leave a psychological scar in the animals. And, being empathetic to most beings, I get depressed when I see them in such situations. That said, I am a big supporter of the modern day wildlife sanctuaries, where the focus is on breeding endangered and rare animals as well as to learn more of their behaviour. One such place is the San Diego Zoo. I actually did apply to work there after I graduated, but I guess I wasn't what they were looking for.

[I failed to achieve my goal to become a zoologist because of two factors: 1 - my advisor in college led me to believe something false. He told me that the Bachelor of Science (Environment) in the University I was studying had zoology as its main focus. It so did not ; and 2 - I failed Biology. I can't remember anatomy to save my body (pun intended)]

So, there we were, at the zoo. I had warned RAESB before we entered that I didn't like zoos and that I would be on a constant "trivia monologue" regarding every animal I see. And sure enough, let's just say, someone learnt a lot of new things that day [at least I hope so].

One of the observations that we made was that the animals in the zoo are ONE. One polar bear. One cheetah. One orangutan. One giraffe. One of everything. No Noah's Ark here. I felt so sorry for these animals, as some of them - like the zebra, giraffe, ostrich - are social animals, so putting them to be alone is psychologically stressing. And most of the Ones were males. I felt sad as I watched the bears pace back and forth and in circles in their small enclosures with nothing to do but bore themselves. Nothing was done to stimulate the animals on a daily basis. There were also zoo keepers stationed at specific points in the zoo to ensure that the human visitors do not abuse the animals (eg: feed them junk food or throw things into the cages) as well as to ensure the general safety of the premise (last thing we need is an escaped polar bear). But what RAESB and I noticed was that the zoo keepers looked even more bored than the animals in the cages.

Here are a few pictures taken that day as well as some commentaries that I monologued on that day. Again, these pictures were taken using my Nokia cellphone.

Entrance to the Zoo will find you with this view. This picture was taken at sunset, as we were leaving the premises, hence the darker view. On the left, a flock of flamingos were gathering for the night.
[Trivia: Flamingos are naturally white. They become pink due to the beta carotene found in their diet. A source of that are the shrimps that they eat.]


Upon walking into the Zoo, among the few first animals you would find are muskrats. You can find them roaming freely in the zoo. They tend to stick to the man-made "rivers" and ponds found throughout the premise. They look like over grown rats - from which they are a sub-family member - but are not rats at all.
RAESB would constantly annoy me by calling them beavers (which they are NOT!).


Other first animals you would see roaming freely:

Ducks, Geese and other water fowls

Pea-fowls:
There were three peacocks (if I counted correctly). And ALL of them had their long beautiful tails cut short. I made my distaste in such stupidity of the human undoing quite vocal. Peacocks use their long bright beautiful tail feathers to "promote" themselves to females and also to ward off other competitive males. Therefore, by cutting their tail feathers short, the peacocks had lost their signature trademark.
Let's just say, the peahen was less than amused and uninterested by the shorter tailed peacocks. I only saw one female among the three male.

Wild pigeons:


I wasn't entirely sure what this rodent like animal was, but there were all over the Zoo. Mainly on grass patches. Looks like a mouse deer to me.


Some of the Wild Cats:

Cheetah
Trivia: Cheetahs came close to being extinct. They almost all died out, if it weren't for the fact that they started to inbred with family members. Due to this, cheetahs - while known to be the fastest land animal - cannot run for a long duration. A side effect of inbreeding has left them with a weak heart and the animal tires easily.

Black Leopard (also known as a Panther)
My animal guide. Panthers are just your run of the mill leopards. They're all black due to the darker undertone to their fur.

Snow Leopard

A Lion and A Lioness
Trivia: There are in fact two "families" of lions. The more commonly known one is found in Africa. The other is found around the Gir forest of India (called the Asiatic Lions). The Gir lions are smaller in size and lesser pride members than their African cousins.

The White Siberian Tiger
The Buenos Aires Zoo actually has a good record of breeding these endangered species. A pity on that day, we only saw this one male.


Ocelot

Tiger

Stray Cats
There were quite a few of them around. This one particular cat led us to follow it but won't let us near it, despite my attempt at cat-calling. I commented to RAESB that cats would seem like good animals to have around in zoos, as they would be able to keep the rodent (rats, mice, etc) population in tact. This was a common problem with all zoos in the world. In doing so, they'd also keep the potential of spreading of diseases to the other animals to a minimum.

Other animals:

Blue Macaw / Parrots

Skunks (two if I counted correctly)

Forgot the name of this animal

Guinea Fowls

A zebra

Two rhinoceroses
Butt shot

Pygmy Hippos

Saw two of them.

More common hippo.
Hippopotamus means "river horse". RAESB pointed out to me that hippo means horse in Latin.
Trivia: Hippopotamus are the main killers of people in Africa, and not big cats as most people would believe. Hippos are VERY territorial animals and will attack anything that crosses into their water territory, including boats.

Red Panda

Trivia: The Red Panda is not actually a family of the common black and white Panda. As a matter of fact, it belongs to the same family as the raccoon.
The Red Pandas (three if I was correct in counting) were placed in a special outdoor exhibition area just for animals from China. Basically, just them. But they had their own "home".

There were several varieties of deer.

And some more varieties of monkies.

Ostrich (female)

Giraffe
Both the giraffe and the ostrich were kept in the same enclosure.

A few varieties of sheep and goats. There was this one kid (baby goat) that got everyone's attention.

Camels
Trivia: There are two families of camels - the dromedary and the bactrian. You can tell each apart by the number of humps on their backs. The dromedary has one hump and the bactrian has two.

Ring-tailed lemurs

Bison

Llamas
As we were passing the enclosure, I told RAESB that llamas spit as a way of defence. RAESB did not believe me. And sure enough, as we were walking, one did spit. And I got hit!
Yes, RAESB, llamas do spit.

Tapirs
A female and her young

African (above) and Asiatic elephants (below).
The African elephant is bigger than its Asiatic cousins, with bigger ears and both sexes having tusks. The Asiatic elephants have a big bump like forehead and only the males have tusks.
I get very empathetic around elephants. Something about them and the forlorn look in the eyes always make me sad and mad at zoos for keeping them in such small places.

Capibaras

We found several varieties of bears, and all of them were males and all of them were singular

Polar Bear

Honey Bear