Zoo-mania

I'd heard about a polar bear cub who had been taken to the Alaska Zoo for care after his mother had been killed. He's now a few months old and in late-March was put on display a couple of hours a day and I wanted to see him. Who can resist a small, furry bundle of joy?

On Tuesday, April 2, voting day, Hobbs and I went to the zoo. I'd been a year or so ago with friend Jaz to see Animal Lights during the winter, but otherwise, not for a very long time before that.

It was a beautiful day, sunshine, blue sky, with a little coolness in the air mixed with sunshine that warms you just a bit. It's the kind you often experience in the spring and fall, the kind we motorcyclists hope we have a lot of during the summer months when we are riding our two-wheeled beasts. Lovely, glorious weather.

There were a number of cars, but the zoo wasn't crowded, which was exactly why we went during the week. We're retired. We can.

The cub wasn't due out for a while, so we wandered around looking at the other animals and birds. We went by a few birds, and then wandered to the Siberian tiger enclosure. Oh my. They were napping, but what spectacular animals they are … and huge, even from a distance. They are not anything I'd want to run into out in the wild.

They may look like cute kitty cats, but if you run into one of these ... you would most likely become lunch.

We wandered by a couple of swans, one of which just happened to have something it had just picked out of the pond and was swallowing.

Swan buffet.

Up the hill we went, to the sheep pen. It was slippery in places due to the melting action. The path is gravel, but snow, water and freezing and thawing made moving around treacherous in places.

This little face was just waking up from a snooze.  He never even bothered to get up.

The snow leopards were out and you could just see a little bit of them as they lay on top of their rock cliff sunning themselves. No photo opportunity here as I couldn't see enough of them. Oh well. Another day.

Brownie playing dead.

Brownie was out, though. There were three brown bears and they were all out laying in the snow catching some rays. Two were being lazy, but the third was full of himself.

Ya ever seen a brown bear doing the worm?

I couldn't resist multiple photos of this bear playing ... rolling over like a dog.

You watching me?  You thinking I'm cute? 

The bear was rolling around, over and over, and then found a stick to play with. He was totally enjoying the day, the sun, the warmth.

This guy really must like having an audience because he just went from cute to overwhelmingly cute.  Too bad we couldn't have tossed him a fish for cuteness.

By then it was time to go back to the orphan enclosure to see Kali, the polar bear cub. When we got there he was still inside, waking up. The zoo employees who work with him put a couple of toys out, including a new one, a penguin dog toy. They like to change it up to keep him interested and not bored.

There were a lot of people gathered round, mothers and fathers with children, old people like us (actually I think we were the only oldies but goodies), and many others who wanted to see this prize. There have been nine cubs come to the zoo over the years.

We heard the little guy before we saw him. A big roar, at least big for his size, I thought. Then he came through the door, peeking out, coming out, stopping, looking around at the entourage that was there for him.

Kali was the bear in charge, once he got past having the people watching him.

He bypassed that old fake penguin stuck in the snow, quickly making his way to one of the handlers.

There were two handlers in the pen. He ran to one, and stood up holding on to his leg. When the guy moved, Kali followed him, just like a little duck following his mother.

Kali stood and grabbed on to one of the handlers.  I wondered how big his claws were even if he is a youngster.

He got used to the people around and then started playing and jumping and running, sliding across the snow. He had an audience and he was going to ham it up for us.

But the little guy has some pretty good-sized teeth.

Kali spotted the penguin setting in the snow. He went over to it, looked at it, backed off and then went for it. 

Hey, what's this?  A penguin?  Don't I eat these in the wild?

Yes, I do.  Think I'll just grab this tasty morsel and run with it.

He grabbed it in his mouth and finally was able to get it back into the area in the building. Maybe he thought it was food, but I got the feeling that is what they do in real life, grab it, run with it, take it to the den. Then out he came again, his penguin in tow.

Maybe I'll play with it for a while and give my audience something to see.

We watched a bit, then it was time to move along. Kali will be sent to the Buffalo zoo probably around the first part of May. There's another cub there he'll be kept with until he is sent to his final destination, which is likely to be the St. Louis zoo. They are building a polar bear enclosure but it isn't expected to be complete for a couple of years. Then Kali will go there if that is to be his home.

The camel was curious ... maybe he doesn't get enough visitors.

In wandering over to the coffee shop, we saw a number of animals, a camel, Tibetan yaks, musk oxen, a llama, a lynx.

We were lucky to see many of the animals that I usually haven't been able to see as they stay out of sight.  We saw the foxes, the lynx, the tigers.  It was an awesome day of viewing at the zoo.

The seals were swimming around, but the glass didn't make for a good photo opportunity, so we watched them for a short while and headed for the polar bear pool. They were who I really wanted to see.

Ahpun is a huge polar bear.  Glad I'm not a seal.

The two were playing together just as we arrived at the enclosure.

Look at the size of his head ...

Ahpun is a big bear, way larger than Lyutyik (Lyu for short), who was born in a Russian zoo. It was fascinating to watch them, playing in the water, and then Ahpun hauled himself out.

Ahpun was apparently tired of putting on a show.



But he showed off just a little first.

Lyu continued to play like a youngster, bobbing up and down in the pool, doing what I likened to polar bear calisthetics. There was a square of some material on the top of the water and she'd stick her head up and through the hold in the middle, then go down and swim around, then back.

That's a lot of bear moving around in the water, but she was weightless, and moved effortlessly.  Lyu was putting on a show and seemed to be loving it.

The polar bears completed what was a superb day at the zoo. 

I could have stayed and watched these antics for a long time, but it was time to go.  It was a great day to watch animals.