Friday Fun: We're at the Zoo! What do you want to see?

[Jimmy Seddon]

Happy Friday Everyone!

Congratulations for making it to the end of another week.

This week's question was inspired by the fact that the zoo near us is still operating with "Virtual Visits" guided by many of the zoo keeping staff.  So my question to you all this week, we have all gone to the zoo, what is the one thing you really want to go and see?

Personally, I have always enjoyed seeing the penguins!

What would you like to see?  Let me know in the comments!

[Soumyadeep Mandal - SaM]

Hi @Jimmy Seddon ,

This is a great question!

I would really like to visit the zoo and see Giraffe, Peacocks, Tigers.

Regards,

Soumyadeep

[Jimmy Seddon]

Good call @Soumyadeep Mandal - SaM!  I enjoy all of those as well.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

At zoos and parks, we always gravitate towards

• Penguins (I love the stinky little nerds)
• All the cats (we like cats, you knew that already)
• Lemurs (They're so fluffy, and like to move it move it!)
• Red Pandas (Chrissy loves them)
• The Meerkats (hours of fun watchiing them play)

We've got a bit closer to most of those at some point too.  I have fed a Bengal tiger (through the wires of course), and we've both hand-fed a flock of penguins, been used as a meerkat lookput post, cuddled a snow leopard kitten and pretty much been adopted by a pack of lemurs as their humans of the day (they loved Chrissy so much, she ended up carrying a mother and pup around the zoo for an hour.  I was stuck with the alpha male who kept trying to get me to steal food from people and other animals)

[Jimmy Seddon]

That's amazing @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-!  I would like to be able to hand-feed penguins!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I would warn you that they really do stink.  I was handed a bucket of fish and thought they smelled bad, then when a penguin jumped on my lap to try to get more than its fair share, I realised it smelled a lot worse.

Still cute though.

[Tom Kakanowski]

Well clearly that crazy zoo in the southern US is on my list...

JK! ::)

But I am a fan of big cats (and medium, and small), so its off to see them!

[Jimmy Seddon]

hehe good one @Tom Kakanowski!

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Amazing enough, the only Zoo in Iceland (when I was growing up) was in my home town. It was a bit of walk but we kids used to go there once in a while. It was actually called aquarium but it also had lions, monkeys, kangaroos, snakes, and other exotic animals. I was always fascinated by the monkeys but the poor things didn't enjoy it...

[Monique vdB]

I love the interactive exhibits where you can feed little tropical birds and they sit on your finger and are so sweet! The Cleveland Zoo has this; my in-laws live there so we've been there a few times. 

I will also never forget taking my daughter to the Tokyo Zoo when she was about five, and there was a giant panda just a few feet away eating bamboo! However, she only wanted to go back to see a skunk she had visited earlier, which was sleeping.  😂

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You've just reminded me of one of my guilty pleasures from my youth - there's a cafe in a semi-tropical monastery garden where the wild birds are so used to tourists, they will land on you and chirrup asking for food and attention.  The coffee and food there is a little more expensive than the rest of the island because every dish comes with a pouch of birdseed to stop them going after your sandwich or cake (and a couple of nuts in case the equally domesticated squirrels turn up as well)  On a good day, you can do Snow White impressions.

(I feel guilty because they probably shouldn't be that domesticated)

[Monique vdB]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- probably not, but this sounds amazing! I can't sing as high as Snow White but I would definitely try. 

[Alice M]

My favorites are:

• Otters because they are just so adorable and often are floating around on their backs holding hands.
• Gorillas & Orangutans because they seem so human.  Enough so that I feel a bit sad that they are in captivity, but I do appreciate the opportunity to see them.
• Goats and anything else at the petting zoo that I can touch.  Last time I spent about $50 on pellets to feed Hazel the sheep (she was a glutton that briskly trotted over to me as soon as I stuck my quarter into the pellet machine) and a black and white goat that let me sit next to him and pet him forever.  Such sweeties.
• Owls because they are amazing.
• Elephants because their trunks are incredible.  It's so fascinating to watch them use their trunks to do a million and one things.

[Thomas Schlegel]

I love penguins too. Some of them have a name similar to mine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_penguin

May I introduce: Eudyptes Schlegeli 

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Osom!

[Earl McCutcheon]

I cannot even remember what Zoo it was because I was only 12 or 13 at the time, But it was one of my favorite experiences growing up.  My father worked for a Fisheries company that built pit tag systems, the RFID microchips that you probably have in your cat or dog in case they get lost, But at a massive scale for monotoring and identifying animals in mass studies, But this Zoo had just finished a large deal and instead of buying tags the company just donated all the equioptment and tags they needed to help the zoo out, and as part of a big thank you, they invited us and gave us all a private after-hours tour of the zoo,  and the thing that was more fun and Awesome than everything else in the entire zoo was the Aligator Gars, Just looking at them they are extremely cool fish as they are and absolute unit of a Giant fish (10 feet long monsters) that look like they are from eons past (because they are, been in fossil records since the cretaceous period)  but where it was the most amazing thing to see and I would love to see again at some point in my life was feeding time,  You take a small feeder fish and throw it over the surface of the water as fast as you could possibly throw it and this 10 foot long fish would go from absolutely still and unmoving to  exploding out of the water up to 6 feet off the surface and grab every single one, it was so mind blowing as they were sitting absolutely still like a log floating on the surface then instantly 6 feet out of the water with a cracking sound like a gun going off snatching an object flying by extremely fast.  Would absolutely love to see that again 

[Alice M]

That sounds amazing, @Earl McCutcheon 

[Monique vdB]

@Earl McCutcheon this reminds me of feeding time for the grizzly bears at the San Francisco Zoo. The keepers throw live salmon in the water and you get to watch them hunt, separated by a mere few inches of plexiglass. Truly something to see!

[Taranjeet Singh]

Whenever I visit a zoo with my family, I like to see Elephants, Rhinos, & Giraffes. It is amazing to see these powerful and elegant creatures. I and my daughter also like to feed Giraffes. She is always excited to see their long tongues.

But, we also like to visit an aquarium, in Camden, NJ. The name is Adventure Aquarium. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit it at all during COVID in 2020. But we like to go especially for watching Sharks while walking over the Shark Bridge, & for feeding Stingrays.

[Alice M]

Stingrays!  In Hawaii at an aquarium there was a small stingray in the touch pool that was swimming in a circle and when it would get to your hand on the edge, it would reach up a little bit and tickle your fingers.  Sometimes it would splash you just a tiny bit.  So fun.  So graceful and beautiful.  And, apparently, cheeky.

[Monique vdB]

I could pet rays for hours. I love it so much! 

[Daniel Ebers]

@Alice Mawwww, yes! The goats - coming back every now and then to see how they're doing is so relaxing. At least until they start eating your T-Shirt.
But because they are sooo cute, you can't be angry, right?

[Alice M]

Exactly.  Look at that face!  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I assume you know of https://store.steampowered.com/app/265930/Goat_Simulator/ ?

[Daniel Ebers]

Awesome, thanks for the hint! No, I haven't seen that, yet. Alone the demo video made me laugh - looks like a crazy game for long and rainy Sundays :-)

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

I always like watching lions and monkeys.

Monkeys are super crazy, still jumping and scratching each other (I just read somewhere, it is not because of bugs or so, but to make the other monkey happy ).

Lions are super calm. They just wait for a food and cannot be bothered by anyone. It should be my ideal day (or the rest of the life) :D.

Thank you for today's theme @Jimmy Seddon :)

[John Funk]

I always love to see the big cats!

[Liam Green]

I love the big cats, because they really are just big cats! And I like a giraffe too. 

We're not too far from Chester Zoo and have been a few times. They have an amazing walk through bat exhibit, but Jodie hates them and they really stink so not good if it's a hot day

[Darryl Lee]

So, I'll be honest. I'm not big on zoos. But this one time, at a company picnic, they hosted a petting zoo. So I don't have to drive to the zoo and see caged animals that are sometimes smelly? Ok, that's cool.

I found this photo in my Google Photos archive when I searched for 'zoo'. A Google Lens search tells me it's kinkajou. Seems about right. I just think the photo's pretty funny. :-}

[Monique vdB]

@Darryl Lee you have to go to a good zoo where the exhibits are really designed to be nature-like and not a depressing cage.  I do know what you mean though. I haven't been back to my childhood zoo (the Los Angeles zoo) because they have uncomfortable-looking polar bears. Hopefully they've improved, since it's been several decades! 

[Darryl Lee]

You make a good point, @Monique vdB To be fair, my childhood zoo was the Oakland Zoo, which in 1983 was listed as one of the 10 worst zoos by the Humane Society of the US. :-{

So when we brought our kids there 10 years ago, I was pleasantly surprised with the turnaround they'd made [even though they still had not yet upgraded the insanely dangerous "skyride" (think ski lift with no snow beneath you). Yes, I held onto my son the entire ride.]

Here's a great story on the zoo's transformation:

https://abitofhistory.website/2020/07/12/oakland-zoo-in-knowland-park/

[Monique vdB]

@Darryl Lee the Oakland Zoo is now my local zoo! I agree it's great, although I never was brave enough to take my child on that skyride, so I never did it. We haven't been there since they added the new California section; as soon as it's safe, I'm excited to go back. Looks like they're reopening next month so maybe I'll see you there.

[Darryl Lee]

In 2018 they replaced those scary open-air chairs with enclosed gondolas - made by a fancy Swiss ski-lift company.

https://www.oaklandzoo.org/blog/gondola

They look soooo much safer.

OTOH, I'm glad I got to experience that 70s-style laissez-faire approach to safety one last time. And that we survived. :-}

Oh, I guess if you wanted, you could visit Santa Cruz, where they still have their Sky Glider: https://liftblog.com/skyglider-santa-cruz-beach-boardwalk-ca/

[Darryl Lee]

Oh wow, according to the Liftblog (because of course, the Internet), "this chairlift [the old Skyride] at the Oakland Zoo only operates at peak times."
https://liftblog.com/skyride-oakland-zoo-ca/

And indeed, the Oakland Zoo's map only lists the Sky Ride as "temporarily closed".
https://www.oaklandzoo.org/map

So hey, you can still live dangerously! Well, after COVID, I guess.

[Monique vdB]

@Darryl Lee also my child is now 9 so theoretically could be trusted even with the insane 1970s version. 

Oh Santa Cruz! How I miss going "places" and seeing "things." 😞

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

@Jimmy Seddon Thank you for that thread, as I have visited virtually the Alma Park. 

Because I just tried to find a tapir photo, then look at the web site of zoo park last half hour :) 

 

Tapir :)

[Hana Kučerová]

As a former web developer I always want to see firefoxes. It seems to me that I'm somehow connected to them :-). Funny thing is I thought for a really long time that these are special foxes (but they are red pandas actually) :-).

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

For those of us who like the Penguins, you can help out some research by looking at pictures of them at www.penguinwatch.org

[Renee Zhang]

I'd definitely want to see the rare spirit bears (no they're not polar bears)! 

[nina_schmidt]

I love to see Wombats ☺️ The look nice and sweet but you shouldn‘t mess with them! I slightly can relate to that! 😉

Meet Apari, he lives in the Duisburg Zoo and has a girlfriend since December... I hope there will be baby wombats soon ☺️

[Fabian Lim]

Giraffe!