Zany, Zealous, Zootime Merriment

Surely there’s a verb that starts with Z that could describe my zoo-going.

My black and white photos were developed! I had a fun time paroosing the zoo even though it was very, very hot out. A lot of the animals, especially the bigger ones, were more interesting in lounging than putting on a good show and posing for me. And since I grew up near a huge city, we had this big nice zoo all through childhood and I visited it frequently. This one in my little college town wasn’t nearly as big, although it was out on some back-road area so it looked way more natural.

As I walked around the zoo, knowing I needed to take over half a roll of pictures and upset that it was so hot and the most fantastic beasts refused to move, I began to wonder. Did these animals enjoy their habitats? Would they rather be in the wild? Do they even know the difference? I’ve never been a huge rally person on rights or anything, but I do care about animals. I had been told these animals were rescued creatures, and this very well may have been true since one of the llamas we saw did have an injury on its face—perhaps it was a newcomer.

I’d like to think that these animals have it good with scheduled meals and certainly here they have employees that care about the creatures. Many of the enclosures had more than enough playthings versus the zoo back home. They’ve also got little rooms here that they can escape to during the most extreme weather. But you’ve always got to wonder, even though the enclosures are often massive, they can easily look like cages versus their natural habitat of the whole, wild wilderness.

Though I say all of this, my friends can attest to me saying “I’ll take you home, I want a tiger as a pet!” when obviously this would be a terrible idea—not only do I have no idea how to take care of a jungle cat, an apartment is no place to keep one.