Lets see now. The Total Eclipse behind me. The drive from
hell a distant thought after a good night's sleep. What to do? I know! GO TO A
ZOO!!! Just typing this made me smile all over again. Cue Denver Zoo on
gps...so nearby. It is, in fact, part of the larger City Park with two lakes
and hiking paths and a public golf course, of course! In spite of Coloradan's
general lack of ability to be civil drivers, they cannot be said to have no
sense of culture and beauty. As a general observation, central Denver is a city
with a lot of beautiful homes and lovely places.
The zoo is very reasonably sized--no marathon like Kansas
City Zoo or Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. Founded in 1896, the Denver Zoological
Gardens has some really interesting vintage features. It's also a zoo on the
go--there are lots of long-range plans for redesigning most of it over the
coming decades, and you can see many parts that have been recently redeveloped.
The Asian Elephant Passage is amazing and reminded me of what the National
Smithsonian Zoo had also recently done to create a state of the art habitat for
this species. Just this year a new multi-million dollar habitat was opened to
feature the zoo's Amur Tigers called "The Edge"--how edgy! There are
also an atypical amount of cage-less viewing opportunities--so glass glare is
the issue in many of my photos... Like the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, I
am tracking my visit in sections. They follow the path of my visit
chronologically, more or less.
I could not find a current map of the zoo on line and
without a scanner, was religated to photographing the one I brought home from
the zoo. Sorry, for the poor quality!
Upon entering, you are drawn to your left and a very open
and wonderful set of exhibits featuring smaller mammals from Africa.
Not exactly the petro glyphs of the Sheep Eater
Indians!--but still a good indication of the presence of the
Crested Cape
Porcupine,
Hystrix africaeaustralis.
A habitat it shares with a colony of
Common Dwarf Mongoose,
Helogale parvula.
In an adjoining habitat is the diminutive,
Kirk's Dik-dik,
Madoqua kirkii.
The Denver Zoo's
Zebra's are of the
Grevy breed,
Equus
grevyi. And the little star of the group of 5 is Cody.
Don't you just marvel at the intricate nature of the Grevy's
Zebra's stripes? They are mesmerizing to me.
Cody is a real charmer--and he's very attentive to human
observation, if you give him your attention.
While I watch him, he left his mother and went to the gate
and showed me how removing the chain would open it!
Peafowl have free reign--like
at other zoos.
The zoo is home to both striped and spotted hyenas. In the
area of the vintage Feline houses, there was a generous habitat given over to a
pair of
Striped Hyena,
Hyaena hyaena. And in spite of the canine features, they
are not members of this genus.
The zoo is also home to a pair of
Snow Leopards,
Uncia
uncia. And this one was totally content to sleep on this high shelf. I returned
5 hours later and he was still napping away!
His mate was more active.
A magnificent
Amur Leopard,
Panthera pardus orientalis,
awaiting his keeper's completion of the cleaning of his exterior habitat. Soon
the gate will open and he'll be out and about. He seemed very comfortable with
the routine.
The Denver Zoo houses a modest herd of
Reticulated Giraffe,
Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata. And it seems a pretty good for this species
in terms of new borns. The little guy here is a male named Dobby. And here's
the thing, the zoo didn't realize that Dobby's mother was pregnant--NO SHIT.
Born at the end of February, he was a surprise to everyone!
Call me a perv if you want, but the herd's bull is clearly
horny and scoping out his next conquest. Wake up zookeepers! Daddy has got his
grove on.
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