It's All Happening at the Zoo!

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After "work" today, it was off to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. I took my new friend Amy with me...it was HER idea, and I had the transportation! We had a nice time together, wandering around and seeing the animals. I was on the same flight out here with her - She lives in Lakewood and we were on the same work assignment here.

The zoo is small, by Cleveland MetroParks standards, but they seem to be working to provide natural environments for the animals, with the limitations of their space. The path wanders around in what seems like a somewhat random manner, so it's hard to be sure you see it all, even with the map they provide at the entrance. Since it is winter, some of the animals are "off exhibit," so there will be more to see in the warmer weather. But to me, the major shortfall of the zoo is in the signage...most of the signposts there point out the gift shop or coffee shop, but I didn't notice markers pointing to any of the animal exhibits. While we were there, they were dismantling their holiday lights displays, since spring is just around the corner!

One of the signs however, did indicate where many of their animals been sent through the years. They sent a Brown Bear to the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo, but it didn't say when it was sent. It looked like these were permanent transfers rather than loans, though I'm not sure. I'll have to check out the bear exhibit to see if they credit it. The variety of animals was pretty impressive for a relatively small zoo. There were musk ox, moose, elk, eagles, hawks, polar bears, and seals, to mention a few. One thing that I learned there is that a reindeer is a domesticated elk; even though they look similar, I thought they were different species!

I think my favorite exhibits were the coyotes and the wolves - periodically they would vocalize to each other. There was a tour guide with a group of children. The guide suggested that the kids start howling, which they were happy to do. Soon the coyotes also sang and continued after the kids stopped. That got the wolves going too, probably communicating to the other wolves about the danger of the coyotes nearby!

I think already told you that I bought a 35 mm camera for the trip (it's hard to remember, since I'm writing these as I have time, and not necessarily in order!), so I put the zoom to use at the zoo. It was particularly effective, I think, with the zoom into the tiger cage!

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