San Francisco Zoo

The night before my mother had circled several things on the San Francisco map. Christian had never been to San Francisco before, so she wanted to make sure that we saw all the touristy important things such as the lookout point for the Golden Gate Bridge, the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, the ruins at Point Lobos, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown and a fairly famous zigzagging street with flowers. We’d also wanted to go to the zoo and aquarium, both of which my mother said would only take two hours. We should have been able to see quite a bit of the attractions. Litttle did she know my penshant for spending endless hours at the zoo.

Bucket Butt Gorilla

We drove up Highway One to the Upper Great Highway along the coast. I drove so that Christian could see the scenery instead of focusing on the road. He was fascinated by the mountain ranges, something Florida doesn’t have. He was also interested in the maps. we had to change from the San Mateo map to the San Francisco one as we drove. Florida’s maps are nowhere as intricate. There are huge expanses of nature where no one lives. He also mentioned that highways were tricky everywhere. In Florida, you go down one highway and get off at the numbered exits and you’re there. California seems to have four different highways before you got where you needed to go and there were junctions to several highways al in one place. I wasn’t too worried though. I grew up in the area and it was fairly easy with Christian looking at the maps.

We reached the San Francisco zoo around 11:00 a.m. There was a very short line for tickets so our zoo experience began right away. You could see a few animals even before you entered the zoo. The giraffes and zebra exhibits were right near the ticketing booth and it was crowded with children waiting for their parents to get tickets.

The san Francisco Zoo was built at a time when cages were the norm. You could see remnants of that era when you looked at the few empty cages. Most of the larger animals are in larger enclosures that attempted to simulate their natural environments. A few others are in older, concrete enclosures, such as several of the bears, while their new one’s were being constructed. The gorillas, on the other hand are in more grassy enclosures.

The first exhibit once entering the zoo were the giraffes along with ostriches, gazzelles and a few other birds. While I was taking photos of the giraffes, Christian saw one ostrich take off and zig zag through the enclosure. It was quite amusing to watch since it looked as though it was a quarterback avoiding tacklers.

As we were leaving the giraffe exhibit, we saw a few people feeding another giraffe. We made a bee-line for them, but it turned out that they were on a special private tour. I assumed they had donated a massive amount to help with renovations.

My mother had shown us an area by the coast to find lunch, but we decided to eat at the zoo. We’d only just arrived and seen just a few exhibits and it wasn’t worth driving back into the city just to have to return. So we got in line at one of the cafe’s. As we were waiting, the special tour group came up in front of us. The tour guide, who seemed rather self-important, told them to get food here, cutting in front of the line. What one of them realized was that they were in front of everyone and apologized as they went to the back. It amazed me because people who receive special treatment sometimes feel they are entitled to certain things. I admired them for not taking advantage and I hope that I can do the same.

Bad Hair Day

When we were around the tiger and lion areas, I saw a woman wearing a vest that said “Zoo Docent”. I thought her vest should have said, “Ask me about the animals” because I doubt many people know what docent means. I only inferred it from the official looking vest that she was a guide (which is what docent means, a guide or a university lecturer). Even if adults knew what it meant, the children wouldn’t. I think the children who could read would realize this person was friendly and would help them answer questions. As it was, the zoo docent was fairly good at just chatting with people.

While we were standing in front of the Siberian tigers, she explained that they were male and female. The female was younger and newer, having only had her for a year or so. There was a previous female, the sister to the male, but she had died from old age. They were originally going to separate the brother and sister and transfer one to another zoo for the breeding programs in exchange for another tiger, except that these two didn’t want to be separated. So they kept them both together and decided to give the male a visectomy so they wouldn’t have inbred babies. Siberian tigers have thicker fur than that of say, Sumatran tigers, which they also had. There was a Sumatran female in the enclosure next to them with a limp. She had a problem with one of her legs and they had to perform surgery on it. She was still healing from it thought you’d never be able to tell since she was constantly moving throughout her enclosure. She’s quite skinny though and I think she’s probably still a bit ill.

Sumatran Tiger

Christian was in charge of the zoo map and also in charge of making sure we saw everything. He noticed a little area off away from everything else on the map, so we wandered over that way. You wouldn’t know anything was there since it looked like a dead end. But if you kept on walking, you would find a small path leading down to another area of the cat exhibits.

We arrived at the snow leopards as they were being fed. The zoo worker was never in the enclosure with them at the same time. The cats were trained to go into a holding enclosure while she placed meat around their normal area. She also had them go through several exercises while they were in the holding enclosure. One of which was to open their mouths so they could give them oral medication should they require it, to stand up on their hind legs so that they could listen to their chest with stethescopes. When they did these things, the zoo worker would feed them pieces of meat with tongs so that their fingers wouldn’t be chomped off. There were maybe six people at this particular event and I got to see a lot of it. We were quiet while it all happened and we asked her questions in murmurs when it was all done.

It was all much more interesting than the big cat feeding we watched after that. The cat building was packed with people. Children were hoisted onto the shoulders of taller parents. I had to jump and maneuver to see anything. The cat building is a series of cages where all the large cats are placed individually. This is so they won’t fight over food and the zoo vets can make sure everyone will have enough food and have proper nutrition. I have no doubt that they also put vitamins in their meat.

I was closest to the sumatran tiger and the female siberian tiger. I couldn’t see over all the other people crowding around the lions. When the sumatran tiger entered her enclosure, she stared down one of the people in the front and bared her teeth. We were close enough to touch them, should you be stupid enough to reach out and have your arm chomped on. The zoo staff were very good with not being in a situation where they would be attacked.

The whole room felt a little like a spectacle. a throwback from an earlier time. Children were screaming, people were flashing their cameras. I just wanted to watch it all in a bit of silence, I suppose. Perhaps a little respect. No one seemed to care about the cats. It was all very different from the snow leopard experience.

Outside the cat feeding building were the penguins. Not all penguins live in the cold, cold arctic. Quite a bit of them live in south africa, which was where these penguins were from. Once, when they added extra penguins, they all jumped into the water and swam around in circles trying to migrate elsewhere. I think that would have been quite a sight. When we were there, they were all lounging about doing pretty much nothing.

We almost didn’t go to the children’s petting zoo area. All petting zoos are pretty much the same. There are goats and chickens, llamas, all those good things. Luckily, we did take a look because there were several perches outdoors with several different kinds of birds on them. There were owls and raptors and even a turkey vulture. All these animals had been injured in one way or another and could no longer fend for themselves. The golden eagle only had one wing and so the zoo keeps her for educational purposes. They also had a blind owl that was inside with a sign that said don’t startle it. I have no doubt people would tap on the glass to make it turn around. But it’s BLIND, it doesn’t know which side is out and can’t look at you even if it were facing you.

This entry is a lot longer than I expected! But then, I did spend a good six hours at the zoo. There are a lot more pictures at the smugmug site.

My favorite photo because he’s just so tubby and is proud of it.

I took nearly 300 photos, so enjoy.