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Published: April 11th 2011
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San Diego! 37 miles from Mexico.
We got to the zoo in the morning right when before it opened which was great since we got our choice of where we wanted to go first. We decided to go and see the first demonstration of the morning which was seeing the elephants getting their daily foot scrub. It was fascinating to see how the trainers had taught the animals to pick their feet up and stick it through a hole in their enclosure. Basically the elephants come into a giant system of hydraulic doors, where they are separated from their keepers, and from the outside the keepers tell the elephants what to do, literally they say "Cha Cha other foot" or "Cha cha move over a little more" and they do it. It is all by positive reinforcement, they feed treats to the elephant as they are getting their feet scrubbed and if they don't want to come in then no one makes them. It was also very interesting to see the bottom of an Elephants foot! It turns out that while they have their toenails the very bottom is pad-like!
After the Elephants we went exploring throughout the park and met
up with a very nice gentleman named John who has been volunteering at the zoo for a long time, he gave us a wealth of information including things like:
The net worth of plants exceeds net worth of animals.
One panda costs the zoo $800,000 a year and the zoo only has them on a 12 year lease from China.
The zoo has 4 Pandas but only pays for 3 since the 4th is a baby, but they have to return it after 3 years. Orchids smuggled from Mexico are kept here and are only on display once a month (sadly we weren't there for it).
They have the largest membership in the world and they literally have a member in every country in the world.
Other Countries give the San Diego Zoo $1,000,000 a year to help with research and development for wildlife outside of the zoo.
And much much more!
From there we saw a line for the giraffe enclosure and as it turns out the line was for feeding the giraffes! Mom and I hopped in line and soon enough we each had 3 biscuits to feed the Giraffes, it was even more special
since this is Mom's favorite animal! Their tongues are so incredibly long, so when you are feeding them you basically hold the treat out and it curls its tongue around and and takes it away! At one point while waiting in line Mom said if was too much of a wait we didn't have to do it, I looked at her crosseyed and asked her when has she ever had the chance to feed Giraffes! It was a truly magnificent experience 😊
At one point in the bug houses I was checking to see which of the insects on display were from Australia, and much to my pleasant surprise only 1 was from Australia (and it wasn't very scary looking to boot!)
The zoo is just impeccable, it really is the best zoo we have ever been in. It was designed so well and the enclosures were great. We ended up spending 8 hours walking around seeing everything, and I am sure we missed a couple things but we really did try to see everything, and overall it was a very pleasant experience.
We got there before it opened and left 30 min before it closed, it
was a full day.
From there we went to our Hotel and had a nice easy dinner at Applebee's.
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Marcus Diehl
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Taking Notes
I know one thing I doing by reading your blog is taking notes of what to do on the East Coast. Thanks for all the details.