Post Africa Zoo visits....
 

Just wondering if any of you have visited a zoo, post Africa. I've only been back 3 months, but still can't imagine every being able to do this.

countingdown,

It really is not so bad, at least not if you are trying to improve your photography. However, it is a bit painful to hear visitors wrongly identifying animals (lions are called tigers, hippos are called rhinos, gorillas are called monkeys, etc.)

I have even gone on a "game drive" at the San Diego Wild Animal park and I think the "guide" felt quite challenged by me since after she asked me if I had ever been on a drive before, I said only in Africa and then after probing more (in front of the other guests) she found out just how many times I had been to Africa (the guide have not yet visited Africa).

She had the nerve to tell me that people had come to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and tell her what a great experience they had on her drives and that they had seen more with her than they did on their own past African safaris. I guess that would be true if their African safaris were in Cairo, Egypt.

I would only go back to practice my photography but given that I am going to Africa twice a year now, and will likely step it up to three times a year in the next couple years, I just don't have a need to even practice at the zoo. However, it would still be of benefit to photograph some non-African wildlife.

A few weeks ago I flew over to Honolulu for the week-end and did go to the zoo there. Seeing the animals made me want to return to Africa even more. Hearing all the people saying "OOOh a lion, OOOh a giraffe" etc, I was thinking to myself, "I've seen them in the wild with no cement wall between us!" For most people, that is how they will see them, behind walls or cages but at least they will see them. I do feel sad for the animals, but they are serving a purpose and even behind walls, I did enjoy watching them.

the Bronx Zoo just opened an exhibit that has 20 wild dogs. i had a great time seeing them and it made me even more excited about my upcoming botswana trip.

The Cincinnati Zoo just reported that one of their critically endangered Sumatran Rhinos was pregnant! It's her third pregnancy. Her first birth was the first captive rhino birth since the 19th century.

Rocco,

I was at Lion Sands in 2003........there was this french couple on the same vehicle, who kept asking the guide to show show him a "tigger"......don't know if it was a language botch-up or whatever....

They took a lot of time going thru sundowners and was really frustrating....

Hari

Dennis, that's very exciting about the Sumatran Rhino. For anyone who doesn't know, there are estimated to be only 300 in the wild and I think around 10 in zoos.

I have visited many zoos since my first safari, and I still find them as interesting as I did as a child. They are a great, admittedly not perfect, educational resource, and they permit millions of people the chance to see animals that very few get to see in the wild. My most recent vacation was to St. Petersburg, Russia at the end of May, and I visited the Leningrad Zoo (great success breeding polar bears, and nice collection of wild horses).

I have visited zoos all over the world, and I would rank these as my favorites:

United States:
Bronx Zoo (my hometown zoo)
San Diego
Los Angeles
Brookfield Zoo (walruses)

Europe:
Vienna (world's oldest zoo, and sight of Irving's Setting Free the Bears)
Berlin
Hamburg (Hagenback's Tiergarten -- first zoo without bars, and lots of interesting displays)
Tallin (world's best assortment of wild goats and sheep)
Budapest (historic buildings)

Asia
Beijing (lots of pandas)
Tokyo
Singapore (and its night safari)

Australia
Sydney
Melbourne (large collection of wild dogs)

South America
Santiago
Lima
Buenos Aires
Rio de Janeiro

Africa
Johannesburg

And the saddest zoo -- Abidjan, Ivory Coast (overgrown, animals begging for food)