The neat thing about being a Girl Scout leader is that sometimes you get to do things like sleep at the zoo.
Then we slept in tents on the grounds, in sight of the tiger exhibit (more on the tigers in a bit). Woke up to the most incredible mix of birdsongs, as one might expect if one had thought about it. Along with–the hooting-ish sound of the gibbons. The girls couldn’t tell at first if that sound was birdsong or humans imitating birdsong–with reason, given that gibbons aren’t that far from us. Said gibbons were only a few dozen feet from us, at the start of the nearest path, cheerfully swinging about. Apparently the hooting is more of a “hey–is everyone out there?” than a “hey–get outta my territory!” And it’s a very social-sounding sound. After breakfast we got the behind the scenes tour. Which included seeing various critters in their off/behind-exhibit housing. Saw an X-ray of a pregnant tortoise in the animal health center, as well as of a cayman who’d swallowed a penny. Visited–of course–the commisary, where white board charts told us things like that the jaguar gets a heartsicle on Tuesdays, and several predators get frozen bloodsicles at various other times. I especially liked the enrichment toy for the tigers–a frozen coconut with a rat hidden inside, tail sticking out the back. Alongside all of which various staff were cutting up veggies for the herbivore crowd. Anteaters like avocados. Bears eat (along with some fruits and veggies) “omnivore chow,” which apparently we could eat quite happily, too. And then the tigers. We were led to a gate, told to head in single file and stay close to the wall. A sound somewhere between a growl and a purr filled the space as one entered. And in front of us, just maybe four or five feet away, were two pacing tigers, separated from us only by a chain link fence. One knew these were predators as soon as one entered, instinctively; and equally instinctively back toward that wall. Terrifying, yet exhilirating, too. The tigers watched us with an eerie mix of boredom and intense curiosity. Not malicious curiosity, but not safe curiosity either–the curiosity of a predator not yet sure quite what you are. They played with garbage pails like cat toys. They rubbed their heads up against the chain link, also like cats. With a roar one leapt at the other at one point, and they tussled like cats, too. A gate was closed between them after that. They have a two gate rule when feeding the tigers: two closed gates have to be between the person putting out the food and the tigers at all times. The tigers have been known to stalk zookeepers (blocked only by the glass on the public side of the enclosure). All of us adults found ourselves pulling the girls further back from the chain link fence, again instinctively. These were predators; one watches the children around predators, no matter how trusting one is of their independence and common sense. Something in me breathed easier when we stepped back outside again, for all that I wanted to be there and watched the tigers quite willingly. Compelling, but not at all comfortable. Which is as it should be. And after that, we were pretty much back where we started, parents came and collected their daughters, and now I’m home and pondering a gibbon-free nap.