Sunday, November 12, 2017

Salisbury Zoo, Salisbury, Maryland; part 1 of 6

Cool mostly overcast mid-autumn day and I awake without a plan on the planet. 10:12 AM--I'm restless. I need an adventure. I know! I'll drove 5 hours round trip to spend 2 hours at a little zoo on the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay. Why not?
The destination was the Salisbury Zoo in Salisbury, Maryland. A place I have never been before. A Zoo that was once called by someone from somewhere "America's Best Small Zoo". It's an intriguing notion. It does not have the best website for a zoo of any size; although it is colorful, it doesn't provide a zoo map and that's important to me as a spacial, visual processor. This one is from the zoo and I photographed it off of a placard. One major disappointment not explained on the website was the seasonal closure of the Ocelot Gift Shop, the ESBA Education Center and the new Morgan Visitor Center. They are only open from sometime in April to October 31st!
Thankfully, the restrooms were still open!

While the map makes it look like the zoo sits on the edge of a lake, you'll notice in subsequent photos that it sits in the flood plain of a little creek. The opposite side is flanked by a residential street that separates it from a traditional, slightly up-scale subdivision of single-family homes. The park along the creek extends in both directions beyond the zoo's perimeters. During the neatly 2 hours I spent exploring the zoo, I never once encountered a single zoo employee or volunteer. Near the very end, I notices at a distance a young women carrying a stainless steel bowl of veggies who was probably a keeper on her way to feed some animal, but she was too far away to engage or identify for certain. I was pleased to see a handful of visitors of all ages and relationships including several black and hispanic families. For a little zoo in a little community on the far side of the bay, it left me with the impression that they take advantage of their zoo.

And it's FREE. Which was one of the motivations for my visit, given the other expenses and time to get there. As to it's collection, it is exclusively fauna of the America's. And like any visit, some of the animals are out and about and some are not. So I will continue the sharing in subsequent posts.

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