Most lists of America's top zoos will rank San Diego near the top. Armed with that knowledge, when we began planning this trip, the Midway and the zoo topped the list of things to see, and it lived up to the hype.
As we did most days, we ate a quick breakfast in our room and drove through Balboa park to the zoo. Wishing to optimize the time available to us, we made sure to arrive in plenty of time, and that allowed us the opportunity to talk to a kind retiree volunteer who gave us a map and some great suggestions about how to see as much of the zoo as possible.
With a plan in place, we set out to explore this magical place. The San Diego zoo was different than any other zoo we'd ever experienced in many different ways. Situated in its wonderfully temperate climate zone, many exhibits we thought would be confined to indoors could all be outside. Even the reptile displays stood in open-air buildings, something impossible in the Midwest. The zoo is also noted as a botanical garden, with many varieties of plants able to thrive. In fact, there are plants extinct in the wild that continue to flourish inside the zoo's boundaries, and they hope to reintroduce these plants to the wild over time, just like they would any animal species.
Among the many, many things we saw, here are some that really stood out:
- In the cheetah exhibit, we saw dogs lying around with the cheetahs. Apparently the dogs helped the zoo keepers train the young cheetahs and kept them calm. They seemed surprisingly content coexisting.
- The zoo had an Australian section where several koalas lived. I knew koalas ate eucalyptus, but did not realize eucalyptus could grow right there in San Diego. Male koalas emit a very strange, deep grunt for the diminutive stuff animals they appear to be. Apparently the little guy in question smelled a female in rut a couple trees over.
- The elephants as always put on a good show. The zoo keepers do a good job creating enrichment activities for the elephants so they don't get bored or lazy. We watched as one Asian elephant figured out how to reach its trunk over its head into something like 50 gallon barrels to extract a tasty treat.
- The lemur display really stood out. Wild lemurs reside exclusively on the island of Madagascar, where their habitat is quickly being overrun, so it is quite a privilege to get to see these rare animals up close. Perhaps counterintuitively, they keep one the the lemur's natural predators, the fossa, in an exhibit close by where they can see each other. This apparently keeps both predator and prey alert and gets them to maintain the behavior both would display in the wild.
- It was interesting the extent to which the zoo personnel allowed the animals to act as they would in the wild. A zookeeper gave a talk at the baboon exhibit and talked about how the males would fight each other and the injuries they would sustain. For the most part, the zookeepers would allow these fight to continue and wounds to heal by themselves (it can apparently be even more dangerous for a treated baboon to try to reenter the group after receiving care because the group will recognize them as an outsider.)
- It was a small thing, but a sign talked about how large ice age herbivores helped many plant species with large fruits increase their range by eating their fruits and distributing their seeds. Among the tree species suffering from the lack of the giant mammoths and land sloths: the Osage orange, which apparently would have gone extinct if not for human intervention. Alex found this unlikely. Another plant suffering from the lack of land sloths: the Joshua tree, which now grow much closer together than in days of yore with no animal carrier for their seeds.
- The polar bear habitat was also open air. They are kept cool via a large pool to swim in and a few ice machines in the back making about a cubic meter of snow available to roll around in at any given time. The diets of these polar bears actually contains far more vegetables and far less fat than a wild polar bear would live off of; by keeping their body fat low, the bears feel more comfortable in sunny California.
We spent the entire day at the zoo, from opening to close, and loved every moment of it. After driving back to our room, we set off on foot for our dining experience that evening, a place with ramen noodles. At only about a miles distance, not only was the walk reasonable and give us opportunity to take in the neighborhood, it saved us attempting to park. We both enjoyed our delicious and satisfying noodles and headed back in, ready to shower, contemplate the wonders of the natural world we had just seen, and prepare for the adventures of the coming day.
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