Cincinnati Zoo! When we got there, it was cold, cloudy, and sleeting. The weather prediction was that it would warm up..........
Hippos can't be outside unless it is at least 50, so we were hoping it would get above 50 and we could see Fiona!
In the mean time, we looked at hardier individuals. These are Andean condors.
They are big.
Very big. My hand, giving you an idea of the scale of that wing feather above........
Here's someone else who can handle the cold.
Roomies. I don't know if these guys occupy the same territory in the wild, but they might, on the cold plateaus of Asia.
I didn't capture any ID info, but I believe this is a Przewalski's horse, with a Bactrian camel.
Here's something more unusual -- I don't think I'd ever seen a takin before. This is a little girl who was born in 2017.
This is big brother, who was 2 in 2017, I think. Between October, 2017, when we were there, and now, he has moved on to another zoo where he will fit into their takin breeding program.
Here's the whole family, though the parents are hard to parse out of this image.
Lots and lots of different kinds of pig in this world. Visayan Warty Pigs were new to me.
This one is clearly a boy. We can almost see his top-to-tail Mohawk....
Want to guess what this is?
Recognize it now?
Capybara. These are big. Google says 70-150 pounds for adults. That's a really big rodent!
Bamboo.
Modern zoos are so cool. There is plexiglas between us and this mountain lion, meaning we can be extremely close to it, in a way that is safe for it and for us (you can see the bottom of the plexi in the lower right corner).
Face to face with a mountain lion.
Rhinosterwurst!
Rhino texture.
Manatees! I only found out the Cincinnati Zoo had manatees about two weeks before we went, and it was in the context of "The manatees we have been rehabbing are ready to be released in Florida, so they will be leaving soon." What?
Wait, there are manatees in Cincinnati???? Wait, they *rehab manatees* in *Cincinnati*?????? And they're maybe going to send them back BEFORE I GET TO SEE THEM???
Yes, yes, and yes.
The two they had when I learned they had 'em were gone to warmer climes when we got there, but in exchange, they got three youngsters to raise up and get big and strong to go back south in their turn.
So we got to see manatees after all. Yay!!! Manatees, being rehabbed, in Cincinnati (hundreds and hundreds of miles from any natural manatee habitat).
These guys are just little. I think the biggest of them was about 6', and the smallest closer to 4'.
There are fish with the manatees. (See the manatees at right, behind the fish?)
Manatees are totally vegetarian. They eat lettuce. Not fish.
It's been so long I can't remember if these are more of the manatees' roomies, or if these were in a separate tank.
Mama Nature's arrangement on the asphalt path.
Polar bear. As I compose this blog post, it's February 27, 2018. Feb. 27 is Polar Bear day. A zoo is hardly ideal habitat for bears. But at least this one will never starve to death because the polar ice is gone and there's no place to hunt. You can help the wild polar bears. Anything you decline to burn (fuel, electricity, wood) is carbon not being sent into the atmosphere to mess with our climate. Thank you!
And now for something completely different -- this is a Kea parrot from New Zealand.
Some brilliant person built a game that people can play with parrots. People put coins in the top, and then parrots and people take turns moving parts of the machine to drop the coins to the bottom.
The parrot above played with us until we ran out of coins. How cool, to get to play with a parrot in a way that's safe for both parties!
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