something prickly and hard to eradicate
I just went to South Lakes Wild Animal Park with newsbot3 and can I just tell you? It is hands down the best zoo I have ever been to.
It is wonderful. I really think more zoos should follow their example. The biggest thing is that animals live together in much bigger enclosures - obviously things that eat each other are separate, but generally, animals that would live together in the wild get to live together in the zoo. They have space, they have an actual changing and interactive environment, and I don't think I'd quite realised just how sad most zoo animals seem to me until I saw ones that had proper friends and neighbours and things to interest them. A bunch of the animals are free roaming within their section of the zoo, too! A lot of the monkeys just have total free reign to go wherever the hell they want, and clearly love it. You can even go right in with the condors and the emus and mysterious pink birds which are genuinely not plastic, and even feed some of them, with keeper input. It leads to this picture, which I adore, and I can imagine it might well be really good for education purposes, too; you get to see the things that live together, and how they might interact.
And, you can actually see them! Because even the ones you can't get in and see from right up close - although even rhinos are really very damn close! - tend to be mostly seen from slightly above, often on a platform that goes right into the enclosure. So, for instance, even though there's no playing with spectacled bears, I could take this from about the middle of their enclosure. (Which also had some monkeys and some capybara and otters and things in it. ♥ so much!)
Seriously, it is delightful and brilliant. But my very favourite thing about the trip was:
People, that lemur is actually as close as it looks like it was. I turned round after sitting on a bench for five minutes to see it STARING RIGHT IN MY FACE. And then I realised we were surrounded. By many lemurs. It was wonderful. They are so cute, and so much fun, and I just! Look!
THAT BENCH IS WHERE I WAS SITTING. I died of lol and aww. And there is even proof of this for people on my LJ flist, which, yes, is a picture of me pointing at a lemur going "LEMUR!" I am incredibly articulate about things I find impossibly cute, I can't even tell you.
Oh, and I became BFFs with a tamarin! Not that I would boast about that or anything.
It's fab. And I would say that even if it wasn't also situated in a really very pretty area that also seems to happen to be perfect for the animals to want to come out and be happy and playful in, especially when it is sunny, as it was when we were there. Seriously: so worth it. And it's not even any more expensive than other zoos! I am totally spoiled for them, now.
James got better pictures than me - because he has a really, really beautiful, if sodding expensive, camera and lens, which he foolishly let me play with and which I now plan to steal secretly in the night. You should check them out, cause he is really very good.
I also feel I should briefly mention Doctor Who, because yaaaay, Nasreen didn't die!! I was so happy about that I almost failed to be bothered by Rory being wiped out of history; I am actually more creeped out than anything, because while I don't think he's gone forever, not with the whole ring thing, that is pretty good at hitting the Id buttons. Damn. I am however a liiiittle bit miffed that even though they had Amy and Nasreen the representatives of Earth, they, um, forgot that people do in fact live in the desert areas, people who might not be so happy about being replaced! I get that they were doing their best, but I'd've thought Nasreen, at least, would be a character in a position to say "people do actually live there and we'd have to deal with that".
I liked that Ambrose was shown to be wrong, even though she was acting As A Mother OMG, but I basically thought the moral perspective of the episode was all over the show - which is, I feel, different from 'ambiguous'. I don't know!
And finally: I wrote the
milk_and_orchids re-read post for Where There's A Will. It's here, and people who want to geek about Wolfe and Archie? Pls to be coming and talking, because it is fun! I have been so impressed at how geekily in depth and critical but loving and fun all the discussion has been so far, and I hope mine isn't the post that breaks that record. *g*
It is wonderful. I really think more zoos should follow their example. The biggest thing is that animals live together in much bigger enclosures - obviously things that eat each other are separate, but generally, animals that would live together in the wild get to live together in the zoo. They have space, they have an actual changing and interactive environment, and I don't think I'd quite realised just how sad most zoo animals seem to me until I saw ones that had proper friends and neighbours and things to interest them. A bunch of the animals are free roaming within their section of the zoo, too! A lot of the monkeys just have total free reign to go wherever the hell they want, and clearly love it. You can even go right in with the condors and the emus and mysterious pink birds which are genuinely not plastic, and even feed some of them, with keeper input. It leads to this picture, which I adore, and I can imagine it might well be really good for education purposes, too; you get to see the things that live together, and how they might interact.
And, you can actually see them! Because even the ones you can't get in and see from right up close - although even rhinos are really very damn close! - tend to be mostly seen from slightly above, often on a platform that goes right into the enclosure. So, for instance, even though there's no playing with spectacled bears, I could take this from about the middle of their enclosure. (Which also had some monkeys and some capybara and otters and things in it. ♥ so much!)
Seriously, it is delightful and brilliant. But my very favourite thing about the trip was:
People, that lemur is actually as close as it looks like it was. I turned round after sitting on a bench for five minutes to see it STARING RIGHT IN MY FACE. And then I realised we were surrounded. By many lemurs. It was wonderful. They are so cute, and so much fun, and I just! Look!
THAT BENCH IS WHERE I WAS SITTING. I died of lol and aww. And there is even proof of this for people on my LJ flist, which, yes, is a picture of me pointing at a lemur going "LEMUR!" I am incredibly articulate about things I find impossibly cute, I can't even tell you.
Oh, and I became BFFs with a tamarin! Not that I would boast about that or anything.
It's fab. And I would say that even if it wasn't also situated in a really very pretty area that also seems to happen to be perfect for the animals to want to come out and be happy and playful in, especially when it is sunny, as it was when we were there. Seriously: so worth it. And it's not even any more expensive than other zoos! I am totally spoiled for them, now.
James got better pictures than me - because he has a really, really beautiful, if sodding expensive, camera and lens, which he foolishly let me play with and which I now plan to steal secretly in the night. You should check them out, cause he is really very good.
I also feel I should briefly mention Doctor Who, because yaaaay, Nasreen didn't die!! I was so happy about that I almost failed to be bothered by Rory being wiped out of history; I am actually more creeped out than anything, because while I don't think he's gone forever, not with the whole ring thing, that is pretty good at hitting the Id buttons. Damn. I am however a liiiittle bit miffed that even though they had Amy and Nasreen the representatives of Earth, they, um, forgot that people do in fact live in the desert areas, people who might not be so happy about being replaced! I get that they were doing their best, but I'd've thought Nasreen, at least, would be a character in a position to say "people do actually live there and we'd have to deal with that".
I liked that Ambrose was shown to be wrong, even though she was acting As A Mother OMG, but I basically thought the moral perspective of the episode was all over the show - which is, I feel, different from 'ambiguous'. I don't know!
And finally: I wrote the
milk_and_orchids re-read post for Where There's A Will. It's here, and people who want to geek about Wolfe and Archie? Pls to be coming and talking, because it is fun! I have been so impressed at how geekily in depth and critical but loving and fun all the discussion has been so far, and I hope mine isn't the post that breaks that record. *g*