Confessions of a zoo-aholic!
By Patrika952
@Patrika952 (156)
United States
January 31, 2009 9:45am CST
I am definately a zoo addict, and my 5 year old daughter is too. During the summer months we visit zoos at least once a month, sometimes a lot more. Unfortunately, we live in a remote area, so that adds up to a lot of driving! We will drive anywhere from 30 minutes to the tiny free zoo, or up to 3 hours to get to the really nice, yet really expensive zoos. You can tell we are there quite a lot when we can walk up to the animals enclosures and say "Hi, Elvira!" (a tiger) or "Hi, Precious!" (a puma), lol. We even get friendly with the keepers and get to touch some animals now and then. My daughter, who is normally a little on the shy side, really opens up at the zoos and will talk to anyone who will listen, she will tell you every thing you ever wanted to know about that otter, or crocodile, or flamingo.
It is just too bad that most zoos either dont have the knowledge or the finances to keep their animals in more natural, behavior enriched environments. There is a huge difference in seeing a polar bear in a barren cage with a dirty little pool, and seeing on in a naturalistic environment with rocks to climb and a huge, clean pool to dive in.
1 person likes this
1 response
@kel1483 (986)
• United States
31 Jan 09
My mom used to join the local zoo's 'Zoo Society'. So she'd pay $50 a year and get free entrance into our local zoo and free or reduced entrace to over 100 zoo's across the country. It was worth it! Our zoo (it's 45 minutes away) cost anywhere from $4 - $7 per person to enter, and since there are six people in our family it really paid for its self after only a couple trips. When she had it, we would go to the zoo sometimes 4 times a month, just for something to do, cause it was free.
The farthest zoo we went to was about 4 hours away. I personally didn't go, but the rest of my family did.
I would say my mom is a zoo-aholic, too. haha. She just loves to take little kids to the zoo (I have lots of younger cousins and nieces and nephews that we bring with us). It's soooo funny what they say! They get so excited, so it's fun.
@Patrika952 (156)
• United States
19 Feb 09
I love the larger zoos for their greater collection of animals, the kids can ooh an awe. But the smaller zoos that we frequent allow us a more interactive experience which I think is wonderful for my daughter. She is not only learning about animals, but learning to interact with people too. Its a lot of fun when you are known as a regular!
