I went to the Zoo!

Well, true to my word, I planned and then went to the Tucson zoo.  This personal enrichment activity was vital to my ever-increasing curiosity about God's creations and how they are housed in my desert city of Tucson.  Does it really make sense that we have a Polar Bear?  Apparently so.  Here are some of the more interesting animals I saw there.  The Giant Anteater is the star of the zoo.  I mean just look at him; look at that tail!  He walks on his knuckles and has killer claws. 

 
Another fabulous animal is the peacock.  In We Bought a Zoo, Benjamin Mee describes how useless peacock finery is and how peacock's waste their gorgeous feathers trying to impress anything that moves.  I guess peahens are pretty picky if they can only be satisfied by the green/teal/blueness of the manliest peacock.

I also visited the zebras, but one was not out in the open and the other was way in the back of the enclosure.  I love how their zebra stripes continue into their mane.  The ostrich looked pretty good too.

The last fabulous animals I saw were the black jaguars.  Most jaguars are yellowish with black spots but these were black with brown spots.  If you look closely you can see the brown spots on the jaguar on the right.  The spots shimmered in the light but otherwise they looked all black.  These are the most dangerous animals in the zoo (according to a docent).  They are sisters and they were playing a little, which was nice for us observers.   

One other animal that deserves special notice is the Visayan Warty Pig. They are critically endangered because there have been no wild males spotted in the recent past and 95% of their population has been destroyed.  So the only males available right now are within zoos and it is super-difficult to get zoos to be breeding partners.  Their habitat was mainly threatened by man, but hopefully man can step up to the plate and start helping these guys instead of hurting them.  There are some breeding centers set up so hopefully these animals can get their numbers up soon.