meriones

This photo of mine is a finalist in the zoo's 2012 photo contest. Voting is through Facebook and ends tomorrow, September 28th, at 11:59pm central time. Voting link: http://www.facebook.com/MNZoo/app_461867630503002 scroll down to the Tropical Animals category. Thank you so much!

some Twirly!Adam for your time =P

So many noisy critters at the zoo today! Started off the morning in Tropics and the wonderful gibbon morning concert. Tia wasn't participating though so it was only Bailey, and Tia is the real loud mouth of the pair. Shortly thereafter the lemurs started their screaming, and the colobus monkeys started hollering in return! I had read about how loud they can be but have never heard it before! The birds didn't want to be left out either, so now the hornbill and argus pheasant were calling out as well! This is why I love being in the tropics building not only that time of day, but this time of year. All these awesomely deafening animal sounds surrounding you and not a ton of screaming kids to ruin the vibe. :)

There's one warty pig that will always come over when I stop to say hi. The same one the zoo tweeted a picture of yesterday, actually. This time he actually came running over, making that cute pig grunting noise, and stretched his little snout as close as he could get to me. SO CUTE!

The goral was running and leaping about down at the bottom of their exhibit which was a nice treat. Normally they are so high up on the rocks all that can be seen is the top of their head.

Got to do a hognose snake animal encounter for the first time in over a year due to the snakes being off handling. They've only been back on the handling list for about a month. She was having a hissy fit as I was getting her out, hissing and head flattened like a cobra, but she settled down quite nicely and yay I've missed holding snakes!

End of the day I got my hour outside on the Northern Trail. The horses were neighing and nickering (and of course quit once I got the camera rolling) and the tiger out on exhibit was actually roaring! I've heard the sound coming from some unseen tiger off exhibit and inside holding, but never a tiger actually out on exhibit! I wonder if Molniy was doing that in reaction to being split up with his brother Vaska and longtime exhibit mate? Those two have been together for years and getting along great (a rarity when it comes to male tigers) and have now been split up for breeding. Vaska to a zoo in Illinois and Molniy will be paired up with a new female coming in by the name of Whirl. I've been told she has a stumpy tail so I'm kinda curious as to what she looks like.

And the remodel for the new dhole exhibit is beautiful! Check out the gazebo entrance:



close up of the door details

They changed her name to Lena. How Minnesotan of them...


It's been a while since I last posted about the zoo so here's a photo from today. About two minutes later this heavy snow currently falling started up. I walked the rest of the trail and less than 20 minutes later I was completely soaked.

The prairie dog exhibit is completely empty now. That was my favorite exhibit growing up which makes me sad, but hey they are being replaced with Daurian Pika so I can't complain! There's actually plans to change the focus of Northern Trail to Asian animals, which is also why the old Mexican Wolf exhibit is being turned into a Dhole exhibit. Only two other zoos in the United States have Dholes - San Diego Zoo and one of the zoos in Ohio. That's supposed to open sometime this month but I haven't heard any official date yet.

The prairie dogs, bison, and pronghorn are all supposed to move closer to the front of the zoo. I haven't watched the animated fly through lately but that hill behind the IMAX will become a bison/pronghorn exhibit and I can't recall where the prairie dog exhibit would go. Somewhere along that East entrance I believe. It also sounds like they are rethinking plans to enclose that upper plaza area due to high costs so maybe the Wyland mural will be saved after all? I certainly hope so.

A new male wolf arrived at the zoo recently to pair up with Waziyata, hopefully in time to try for a litter next spring. He's still in quarantine but apparently he's a black wolf! I've always thought black colored wolves were beautiful and wow he'll look so nice alongside Wazi and her white coat.

ooh ooh...and our volunteer coordinater was telling me how she went to a birdshow recently and they now have a bit where they pick a couple people out of the audience, have them hold out their arms with food in either hand, and release a big ol' flock of birds at them. Sounds like fun I wanna do it! =P

Final Wednesday for the farm. Weather was cloudy and humid and the sun finally came out as I was leaving. We got a nice sudden downpour right as we were about to start cleaning the goat yard. Definitely made our decision as to whether we should hose it down easier lol.



And as I was walking in this morning they were walking Bo and Luke in harness along the paths. Bummer that they basically lost a year of training them in due to their hoof problems. Especially now that the American Cream's older age is starting to show with arthritis in their legs. They had to remove the boys from the parades at the state fair this year.

I also checked the wolf gazebo and was surprised to see the girls from North Dakota still on exhibit. I had read previously that they would be leaving by the 29th. I guess they're going on Friday now. Last time I'll probably be seeing a Mexican Wolf as they are gonna change the exhibit to hold Dholes, which is a type of Asian wild dog that looks like a red fox but is the about the size of a German Shepard. I hear they will be getting the animals in within the next month, but no idea when they will be on exhibit.

Apparently they are also getting in some Pika (!!!!) in October some time, and are considering the possibility of Springhaas. Basically name in animal that most people have never heard of and I'll be excited about it lol.

With the holiday I wasn't really expecting my new camera to come until later in the week. Pleasantly surprised to have it arrive yesterday, which meant I could bring it to the zoo for a test drive! I knew the ultimate test of it's zoom capabilities would be the zoo's musk ox exhibit.

I don't have an unzoomed view of this exhibit handy, but anyone that's seen it knows how impossible it is to view the musk ox. The exhibt is, I believe, close to ten acres in size, probably half of that space being a lake on the front half of the exhibit. So that animals hang out behind the lake way up on a hill super far away. Photo above is from my new camera with no cropping. Yeah, that zoom will definitely come in handy when photographing the bison and other wildlife in Custer State Park.

Definitely needs a tripod when zoomed all the way in if I want large crisp images. Obvious it looks fine resized for the internet (yay image stabilizer!), but when viewed at 100% there is a little bit of haze around the edges from camera shake.

At the three o'clock birdshow a wild turkey randomly ran/flew across the stage during the red jungle fowl segment. And they actually had to acknowledge the rats today as one stayed out on the vine and Laurel had to go and lift it up into the opening in the wall. Kinda wish Dave has been doing this show just to see how he'd play with all the little surprises.

Just remembered that I never filled the motion theme on this old meme (that I still have every intention on finishing!) so here's another galloping colt photo from today. :)

( Complete List of Themes )

Just to get it out of the way, yes a Mexican Wolf escaped and had to be killed today. Unfortunate but a wolf is considered a "potentially dangerous species" and it was walking along the public paths when the trail hadn't been fully evacuated. I personally wish the articles would put more focus into why a tranquilizer gun couldn't have been used because what few comments I've read (many in an article that actually explains why a tranquilizer couldn't be used. Reading Comprehension Fail!) seem to be focusing on that fact. Contrary to what happens in the movies a tranquilizer doesn't spontaneously make an animal drop to the ground asleep. It can take up to 15 minutes for it to take affect and an animal running in a panic from being hit by a tranquilizer would just have posed even more of a danger to the public.

I am curious what will happen to that exhibit because as far as I know the only other Mexican Wolves are the two here temporarily from the flood threatened Dakota Zoo.

I was at the farm when this happened. For those unfamiliar with this zoo the wolf exhibit is right at the fork in the path that visitors take to the farm. The wolf could have just as easily run down our way, so there was quite the sudden rush to get everyone evacuated into the basement of the farmhouse. Glad the action didn't head our way though because those farmhouse doors are glass and it was full of little kids on a field trip. Can you imagine if all those kids actually witnessed the end result? Talk about possibly being scarred for life! I was present when the baby dolphin swam into the tank wall and was fatally injured and I still get shivers just thinking of the awful sound it made.

Here have a photo of a cute baby horse nursing to make up for the downer of an entry.

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I was volunteering at the zoo today, so I was conveniently where I would want to spend my last day on Earth. Plus I got to high-five The Cat in The Hat, so really life is now complete.

Oh, and a sampling of what happens when Dr. Seuss is on the loose...

Exterior of the tropics building at Minnesota Zoo. Always wanted a shot like this but there has always been picnic tables/vending machines/people blocking the shot. One dude managed to sneak into the corner but I am pleased! Only improvement would be some pretty clouds to break up the solid colored sky. :)

( Complete List of Themes )

See? I didn't totally forget about this meme! I was finally getting around to putting the new hood on my fishtank, and realized one of the lightbulbs would be the perfect subject for this prompt. :)

( Complete List of Themes )