A Trip to the Zoo! -September 2008

Finally! Zeke gets to meet cheetahs, snow leopards, jaguars, etc. face to face! And I do mean that close.

In September we made a trip to the Zoo. We'd been waiting for a l-o-n-g time to get to see the animals he's been passionate about...and we were not disappointed. We made it to the zoo right when they opened so had front row seats for all of the large cats. The cheetahs were moving around a lot and came right up to the window, literally face to face with Zeke - only a relatively thin piece of glass separating him and the cheetah. It was fantastic!

And the snow leopard! "Boris" was not on display because they were cleaning his cage, but the zoo keeper allowed us a behind the scenes look at him. We got to go into the back room where he is kept when not on "display" and he looked more beautiful than I can describe. They say he likes to be rubbed and scratched through the bars and truly he looked like a big kitty.

Still, zoo's always upset me. I have struggled with this for years - I have worked for the Columbus Zoo and I am both fascinated by the captive animals and feel deep sorrow for them. What a horrible existence. I particularly grieve for the primates, who undoubtedly understand their fate to some extent. But all mammals have a limbic brain and create relationships and have far more emotions, feelings, and intelligence that humans commonly give them credit for.

So I put my grief aside for the day and allowed Zeke to explore the world of animals in the only way he can at this time - it was pretty darn cool!