Sorry for the delays in posts..... It's been a busy summer so far eh!
Early in the summer, in-between all the rain and clouds during the week, we were fortunate to have nice weather on the weekends! In June, we thought it would be fun to take a day and explore the Vancouver Zoo.
http://www.gvzoo.com/ It's about a half-hour from our house, South and East of the city center in Aldergrove. As far as zoo's go, it' ok... I think we've been spoiled in the past visiting the Columbus Zoo with my brother which has a more open habitat style of containment. While the Vancouver Zoo is spread out and nice to walk around, the layout is reminiscent of older zoos, with square pens and chain link fence separating guests from the critters. Reading over the website, it seems that they are trying to improve this over time and have a desire to create more open habitats. Their newest area, the North American Wilds, is only perimeter fenced, and you have to take a safari style ride through it.
They do have quite a variety of animals and some of the highlights at least for Owen & Molly were the black panther, the giraffes and the Hippo's.
Owen & Allison at the entrance... this was at the end of the day and Molly was sacked out in the stroller.
We were able to catch the feeding show with the Lions & Bengal Tiger. It's pretty intimidating how fast these animals move for how big they are. They had bleachers set up along the path and we watched and listened as they talked about the animals and fed them big chunks of meat.
The Giraffes and their little observers.
Molly thought the Bison were cows. Mooooooooo.
They have a Grizzly bear named Shadow that was rescued as an abandoned cub and brought to the zoo for care. She was sunning herself in her pond...
Hello there.
There's quite a population of bald eagles here in the greater Vancouver area. We've seen nests along the water and see them flying on a semi-frequent basis. This one was flying over the zoo.
Watching the raccoons have their lunch.
They have a small reptile house that has lots of great lizards, small alligators, salamanders, snakes (much to Allison's dismay) and a variety of geckos. This was the most unique and colorful.
Just one of the rarest scenes up here.... blue sky.
Molly was so excited to see the hippos. The first time we walked by they were in the back of the habitat, sunning themselves in a pit of mud. We were fortunate to catch them feeding on dinner and got to see them up close.
Momma and Joey.
