Auckland Zoo

 

On Sunday Laura and I went to the Auckland Zoo.  It was an amazing zoo because it was very natural with plants and trees everywhere.  I was also surprised by the lack of fences on many exhibits.  Obviously some animals had more of an enclosure than others but not nearly as much as in zoos that I have been to in the United States.    

When you first walk in there was a huge metal elephant!  I was so excited about it so I had to get my picture under it.  Then we got to see the giraffes, it was feeding time and they were letting people feed them but we were just a bit to late to get to try.

Then we walked around to see the rhinoceros, they were so close to us I bet we were less then 20 feet away.  Then Burma the elephant was next.  Since elephants are very social animals and the other elephant died in 2009 Burma gets a lot of extra attention.  She gets to take walks around the zoo with her trainers, we got to see her out, and paints regularly.   

We saw the baboons and there were several very small babies.  There were tons of animal statues and a really cool kids playground.  They even had a section with lots of ropes and the sign asked, “How good of a monkey are you?”   

We went into the Kiwi house to see the kiwi.  Unfortunately we were unable to get a good picture because it was so dark, and kiwi are fast but I will try again when we go to Rotorua in two weeks.  

I also really enjoyed this zoo because everything was set up as thought it was a research facility and there were signs at every exhibit explaining the anatomy of the animals, what kind of defense mechanisms they use, where they live in the wild, and lots of other information.

Something that I have notices about maps of the world is they are all set up with this perspective.  I think it is interesting because that is not how we generally view a map of the earth in the United States.