So let's see.
Going back to my list of animals that the zoo advertises, but I've never
seen.
Beavers....
Nope
Sloth Bears....
Nope
American Bison.... Finally, I win!
And what a win it was, too.
This is two. There were two
beautiful American Bison (Bison bison) females: Zora and Wilma, both from Montana originally. And their habitat is like in the middle
of the damned zoo, but off of a side path marked "backyard zoo" which
is probably all I ever saw and then eschewed taking that pathway. I have to also say that after seeing
them in the wild in Yellowstone and Badlands National Parks and Custer State
Park in Wyoming and South Dakota this past summer, it's not at all the same
sort of thrill. But still, you are
taken in by their majesty.
Interesting history of the Bison and the National Zoo.
I also include in this post my visit to the
Asian
Elephants (
Elephas maximus). The National Zoo made a
monumental decision a few years back to transform the heart of its upper zoo
into a state of the art Asian Elephant habitat. There is so much controversy about housing elephants in
zoos, and yet the need to conserve and create alternative populations of these
magnificent creatures has never been more acute. Some zoos have bowed to the pressure like Woodland Park in
Seattle and the Nashville Zoo and have transferred the elephants to other institutions--in
both cases their animals died prematurely and within a year or two of making
the move. In the case of Woodland
Park Zoo, they had more than enough room to create a state of the art habitat
for their elephants had they chosen to.
Three other zoos that have gone the route of creating larger, more
enhanced habitats for elephants are Zoo Miami, the Denver Zoo and the Henry
Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and I applaud their decisions.
The multi-million dollar facilities at the Smithsonian Zoo
were originally envisioned to also be a place of procreation for the species
with plans for an extended habitat to house a bull, but fate intervened and
what has come of their work is more like a geriatric facility for older female
elephants. There is one exception:
Maharani is a 27 year-old who is currently being prepped to be Artificially
Inseminated. The remaining 5
females are past any safe breeding age.
The oldest is 71 and the other four are all around 44 to 47. Here's a great codas to the story of
these four elephants. The first,
Shanthi, came to the National Zoo in 1976 at the age of 5 or so from the
Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka. In 2013, Bozie was tranferred from the Baton Rouge Zoo in
Louisiana, but she too had live at the Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage in Sri
Lanka at the same time that Shanthi had.
Then in 2014 both Kamala and Swarna came to the National Zoo from
Calgary Zoo in Canada. And, yes,
BOTH had been residents of the Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage when Shanthi and
Bozie were there in the mid 1970's!
When you experience these elephants at the National Zoo you can see that
there is a tremendous bond between them.
Oh, and did I mention that Maharani is Kamala's daughter? Keeping it in the family! And all of this notwithstanding today
was not a great day to get pictures.
The elephants were mostly inside by choice and then once outside didn't
seem interested in exploring the wider reaches of their habitat.
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