Afternoon At The Zoo

Thanks to an early dentist appointment and the gym done early last week, I got to spend 2 whole hours at the zoo. 2 whole hours! Normally I get there moments before last entry with 30 minutes, okay 45 minutes as I found out they have a 15-20 minute grace period to say hi the to residents. When they switch to Spring/Summer hours I’ll have an hour if I make last entry. 

I got to see more of the improvements and construction work going on. The Roman ruins discovered during expansion which I think stopped any renovations for a while have been covered over and construction workers are back. I know many people have split opinions over zoos. Some say they’re good others bad. Yes, there are some bad zoos out there and I admire people campaigning to get them close down, animals rehoused in other zoos or make improvements. There are some enclosures at Barcelona Zoo I can’t wait for them to improve: the big cats, bison, bears, expansion of giraffe outside enclosure (their indoors is all new and improved), hippos, monkeys and quite a few of the bird enclosures. Most residents seem happy, the zoo does it’s best providing enrichment and quite few babies are born each year. I think the zoo’s most difficult species are the humans with respect towards the animals.

The weather wasn’t the greatest, but I got to spend 2 hours surrounded by urban greenery, animals and some much needed p&q thanks it being a school day. Sometimes in the summer when everybody is at the beach, that last hour of the day feels like I have to whole place to myself. My own tropical garden. I’ve tried to keep zoo pics to a minimum the past few weeks to avoid repeats and same old, so let me know if you’d like to see more or less zoo pics. That’s if I make the gates in time!

De Brazza monkeyHis hands This guy loves to check you out, look around you, thump the glass (he cracked it once), bare his teeth and walk off. So you can imagine people jump the barriers. The other barbarys are more chilled out. Most of the time if you ignore him or acknowledge him but don’t stare he’s cool with you. I believe all the barbarys at the zoo are rescues from the pet trade. These guys are so tiny compared to the orangutans they share an enclose with. This one was happily sitting near 1 orangutan when another chased him away. Gibbons might just be my favourite primate at the zoo.Watching the mangabey monkeys in their new enclosureMangabey monkeys up to tricksI could watch these guys all day.Penguins and heronsMouflon One of these girls was hangry. They keep staring at the gates for the keeper and when he came, they couldn’t get into their night enclosure quick enough. Expansion work with Roman ruins buried once again.Telling their neighbours, the tigers to shut the F up. The lioness was louder than him. You could see dust moving as she roared. What you get when you try to take photos of otters playing I wonder if they’ve ever enforced itSoemtimes you’ve just gotta go for it

More or less zoo photos featured in posts? Zoo’s a good thing or a bad thing?