The Bronx Zoo

Marc and Linda took Corrie and I to the Bronx Zoo. It was my and Corrie's first trip, and Linda's first since grade school. Marc remembered having been there before, but I don't remember when he said that had been.

Let me say, starting out, that I have mixed feelings about zoos in general. The first thing that gets me is the paradox of having to educate the populace about the beauty and diversity of animal life on the planet, about the importance of keeping that rich diversity intact by imprisoning examples of it and showcasing them. In many instances, those animals have no habitat left, so being caged up is the right, difficult as it may be, decision to keep them from going extinct. Sometimes those animals have some habitat, but are susceptible to infanticide, baby predation, etc, and are held in captivity for mating procedures, to be released at some future point back to that habitat.

Okay. My liberal misgivings have been stated. I'm not sure what I expected with the Bronx Zoo. But, not that it was disappointing, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind; it was, basically, another large zoo, kept up rather well, well stocked with all the cool animals we were hoping to see...maybe I was expecting more glitz, or flash...just remember, this isn't some oil-scion from Dubai's personal backyard zoo. It was a nice zoo, a great zoo, and I had a good time. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't effect me seeing all those animals behind glass, bars, or moats staring out with a longing look (if they were awake).

In any case, we saw the bison first, then wound up a walkway to the bird complex. Inside there were lots of non-aquatic, non-birds-of-prey birds stationed in small cubicle like places where the back wall had a large slightly blurry photographic image of the bird's natural habitat. I saw it and thought, I'm sure they get fooled by that every day, and then I tried to tamp down my inner criticisms. It was pretty cool, walking all over the complex, seeing toucans, other birds that I don't the names of (there were plenty), going up ramps and into rooms that were hot and humid, hearing the raucous calls from each of the species upon entering a new section.

We left there and walked for a while. We dodged kids (everywhere we went), and I guess that makes sense, since kids probably haven't spent as much time watching late night (old-school) Discovery Channel nature shows as I did, and so this wide collection of animals is still very awesome. We saw the baboons, the giraffes, the zebras, some stripy-deer like animal that was in the same pen as the lions...almost too much like the Serengeti, right? Now, watching a pack of lady lions bringing down one of those guys? I'd definitely stick around for that. We saw the tigers and the polar bear and the grizzly. Seeing the bears made me sad again, and I'll include a picture of them.

Eventually we went to the monkey hall. I'll include a picture of the detail work on the facade, since it is cool and indicative of how the zoo was probably organized and toured in the last century. Inside was pretty cool, but there were only New World monkeys; only from South America. (I only knew this because of my insomniac research that led to my own blog post about them a few months ago.)

We were planning to see the gorillas, but that exhibit cost extra money, and we didn't feel like fighting the even-more-densely-populated throngs of children.

I had a good time, and I thank Marc and Linda for indulging Corrie and my desire to visit the zoo, a desire we've had since arriving here back in 2006. Perhaps I'll add some more pictures later, but here are a few.

Here's one of the educational boards up at the bison hutch. Do you see that, or is just me?

Here the two bears...see how sad they look? Again, is it me? Maybe being surrounded by concrete...check out the grizzly's toy on the right hand side.

Here's some hyenas giving me the hungry look.

Here's the neat work on the monkey hose facade. Each building has something like this, this facade work showing what was inside.