It was cold today, but it was a free day at the zoo, and it turns out that winter is a good time to go to the zoo since many of the animals are sporting beautiful winter coats. We saw the African wild dogs, a first for me, and the spotted hyenas, striped hyenas (my favorite of the two) the servals, a quickly pacing fossa, an amur leopard (which, if you’ve seen Planet Earth, makes you feel like you’re looking at a caged ghost) the always gorgeous snow leopard, a lounging polar bear, the arctic foxes, which get the cuteness award for being all curled up into big, fluffy white balls; the otters, a close second in the cuteness category; a swimming tapir and an elephant, among many others. Aside from the arctic foxes and a few others, most of the animals were very active and provided better than average viewing. My favorites were the Siberian tigers and the wolves, who were asleep the first time we looked, but provided a show later on.
To see a full grown Siberian tiger a few feet away is to be awed (is it really that big? It totally is. Look how big it is! You keep dumbly thinking to yourself.) To see it is also to be awwwed when it starts playing with the four already large five-month old cubs nearby. It was hard to be impressed by anything after that, but the three white wolves did a good job of it when, around sunset, they gathered and howled.
The Denver Zoo free day part 1: stupid people
Crowds gathered round to see the beautiful animals at the zoo today, and displayed a frightful amount of ignorance as they did so. I feel I must report:
People mistook the African wild dogs for spotted hyenas because the two are rotated through the same enclosures and apparently, if there’s a sign that says “hyena” on it, that must be what you’re looking at, even if it’s actually a multi-colored canine that looks nothing like the picture of a spotted hyena on the same sign, and even if the actual hyenas can be seen simply by turning your head to the left and looking in the adjacent enclosure.
“It’s a Savannah Stalker!” This is what people think servals are called, because the sign giving information about them is titled “The Savannah Stalker,” with “serval” written in smaller type down below. There's no excuse for the person who thought that this was a bobcat.
“It’s an anteater. I didn’t know they got so big!” They don’t, lady, and they don’t spend much time submerged in water, either. Ok, apparently they are capable swimmers, but think about it: do ants live under water? Don't answer that. You’re in the pachyderm house, and you’re looking at a Malayan tapir. Don’t worry, your small son is smarter than you and is happy to correct you.
Finally, parents seem to have slacked off on their duty to tell their children not to pound on aquarium glass as it harasses the fish or other animals inside. I'm not saying the kids are dumb, because they're just kids. All I'm saying is that a responsible adult needs to step up and threaten to throw them in with the Siamese crocodile if they don't stop tapping on its glass.
Luckily people weren't the only thing on display, and I'll talk about the actual animals in a minute.