The Zoo

For the Scoob's birthday, Daddy-O took a day off and we all visited the beasts at the massive Toronto Zoo. The world's third largest zoo does its thing with a heavy emphasis on conservation and public education.

Unfortunately, this day fell on a Sunday, so it was, well . . . a zoo . . . (sorry)

Watching the Vast Herds of Humans was almost as interesting as watching the beasts, though.



While I share the distaste for seeing beautiful creatures, who should by rights be Free and In The Wild, hemmed in and goggled at by chattering apes in Nike shirts, I also see the wonder in the Urchin's eyes when they really, really get how big and strange and real an Elephant, or a Rhinoceros is.



Even the adults, most of them usually consumed by their own Get Aheadism, seem a little sobered by the decline of the tiger, when confronted with a billboard of Sad Tiger Facts and the awe inspiring power and beauty of real ones, five feet away. Maybe, for ten minutes, they will think about it, care about it.


We learned that Giraffes have a heart the size of basketball, needed to pump blood all the way up that long neck, and that they give birth standing up.



Of course, we had to visit Scooby's totem, the Mighty Lion, King of Beasts.

I thought this would be the pinnacle of the day, but she just peered at him, clucked "Yup!" and wandered off.

Had to resist an urge to drag her back and point and yell "Lion! Lion! Look! You LOVE lions! Remember?!!!"

Sigh.




There are some cool 'research stations' and examples of how naturalists and scientists past and present lived/live when studying wildlife.


Had to capture this heartfelt tribute to Owen. Rest in peace, Owen.

Entering a mind bending Butterfly Garden was like falling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Hummingbirds and zillions of butterflies flitting about in a technicolour garden.

(Pic above) you could view them in various stages of metamorphosis, much to the fascination of the Scoob.




We made it to the seal enclosure at feeding time, and were lucky enough to observe the very playful seal flipping around on the rocks and hurling himself into the pool with apparent glee.



Scooby knew this was a "Reticulated Python" as opposed to just a "Python."

Hell, how about "as opposed to just a 'snake'!"

Tell her something about an animal once, she's got it. Gotta stop making stuff up.




The Ostrich Family made an impression with their sheer enormity.

Seems obvious that birds are dinosaurs, when you see an ostrich. Makes you feel stupid for not having thought of it first, really.

The mother stood over her babies like a great tree, providing shade.

Then she sat on them.

Speaking of dinosaurs, the big show at the zoo right now is a pile of realistic, actual size, animatronic dinosaurs, emitting terrifying noises, swishing tails, mouths roaring open, claws scrabbling for you.

The roaring of the absolutely gigantic Thunder Lizards, combined with the shrieking and sobbing of terrified children, made for a truly head splitting time. Neat though. Nah, Scoob and Baby Man weren't scared....


Until we got to this little one . . . just a bit bigger than the kids, this one was freakishly agile, had some seriously monsterish claws and a really, really scary noise.

How do we guess what sort of noises dinosaurs made? Even though we don't speak Dinosaur, we didn't need a Dinosaur-English dictionary to fully understand he was saying "I'm going to eat you now, and it's going to hurt."

Even my dinosaur lovers wavered and blanched just a little...



Cool bones and cool science education thrown in for good measure...




Who's watching whom?

Wrapped up the day with a Round The Zoo ride on the Zoomobile, which was so unbearably exciting for Baby Man that he immediately fell asleep and missed the whole thing.

We'll go back on a weekday, when the Human Herd has thinned, and do it again, in a more leisurely fashion. Happy Birthday Scooby!

HW