January 17, 2017 - The Zoo

January 17, 2017

The Zoo

If you know me, you know I love zoos.  I love animals of every type, especially rhinos.  I’ve been to 15 zoos in Texas, and another 5 in the US, and 5 more in other countries.  When I came home to Texas this winter for a family emergency, one of my plans was to visit the Dallas Zoo with my little great nieces and nephews.  But of all the zoos in the world the Santa Cruz Zoo is one of my favorites.

Its complete name is the Zoológico Municipal Noel Kempff Mercado and it is a unique little zoo, with animals unique to the savannahs and tropical forests of eastern Bolivia.  Here you can see animals that you might not see in your travels to Bolivia.  It isn’t well-funded, so it is nothing like the Dallas, Waco, or Tyler zoos.  Most of the animals are in small old-fashioned cages.  Not very natural at all.  But there are some nice touches.

There are two aviaries you can walk through.  One was closed when I went the other day, but the other was open and crowded.  I have learned at zoos, if you wait, people leave and you can get a quiet shot with your camera.  There were several beautiful macaws, parrots, pigeons (though there are hundreds more in the Plaza), and at least two toucans.  When I was there in March it was blooming.  Now is winter and not as many blooms.

The reptile house and aquarium have some interesting animals, but it is not as pretty as what we have in Dallas.

There is a huge pond in the middle of the zoo, with two islands with two different kinds of monkeys.  I’m not sure the specie of either.  While I was there I got to see a rescue.  A sloth fell from a tree into the pond.  Sloths can swim, but it was swimming for one of the monkey islands.  Both groups of monkeys were kinda going nuts (just like you get when a stranger is walking down your street).  The zookeepers took a canoe out to the island and rescued the sloth before he was monkey attacked.

Later I saw the wet sloth drying off under a tree; he seemed confused.  Some kids were really interested in it, but not being very nice to it.  One boy kept poking its head. I got between him and the sloth and eventually the boys ran away.  Later I had a good view of him climbing a tree.  This guy was a lot faster than the guy in Zootopia.

There are at least four jaguars that I saw, one in a nice enclosure.  There was an alligator pond with nine gators that I counted, but more than seventy turtles.  And there was a wild pig cage with about fifty pigs.

When I went in March 2016, nobody was there, probably because the kids were in school.  When I went in July 2016, it was packed.  It only costs 10 Bs. for adults and 5 Bs. for kids over six.  Seven Bolivianos equals a dollar, so I paid around $1.30.  A cheap place to take a family of kids.

I think when I return one day soon, I need to make a monthly pilgrimage to the zoo. Maybe I'll go to the Dallas Zoo today, since it is a sunny winter day.

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