Members-Only Night

On July 24th we were invited to a members-only "enrichment night" at the zoo with an Olympics theme.  While Reid worked late, I decided to pack a picnic dinner and head out with the boys.  It was fun to arrive at the zoo as most were leaving and to enjoy the cooler air that comes with the evening hours.  At the entrance to the zoo was a schedule of the activities.  Basically, they had two different animals doing enrichment activities for a fifteen minute period, then there would be a fifteen minute break before two more animals were scheduled.  For our first animal visit the boys were very excited to see the river hogs (aka. piggies) as they were to be doing basketball.  Silly me....I actually thought that somehow the hogs would be nudging around balls.  Instead, we learned that "enrichment" means "feeding time".  For the Olympics theme, the zoo workers had made paper mache basketballs that they then filled with food.  The docent handed out balls to several different kids along the fence line and then they all threw them in at the same time so that all of the hogs would get a fair shot at food (instead of a more dominant hog taking over at one central feeding location).  Finn was originally handed the basketball but he chickened out and handed it Kai.  (Of course, then he wanted it back but he handed it back to Kai for the throwing in.)

A 2 week-old baby giraffe.  The giraffe was 5 ft 4 inches when it was born and 134 pounds.

The basketball hoop for the river hogs (it was used as a decoy)

Kai ready to throw in the food/basketball

River hogs waiting patiently

The tiger's enrichment was badminton themed

Help!

This was the first time I had ever seen the grizzly wander so far from it's normal viewing area.
  It was neat to see it out and about.

After giving up on enrichment activities we wandered to this part of the zoo that was pretty deserted and quite.  We found these Colobus monkeys just hanging out by the elevator.

Because of the location of the zebras, we don't normally take the time to stop and watch.  Since it was a quiet and cool night, we stopped for just a bit.  It was nice to relax here for a while.

So fun to be at the zoo at night.  See the moon over the mountains?

From the hogs, we went to the Komodo dragon where it was just way too crowded to actually see anything.  We went from there to a place to sit and eat a bit before heading up to the tigers.  Once again, it was incredibly crowded.  It was at this point that I decided "to heck with enrichment!" and we were just going to see what we wanted to see at the zoo and head on home.  Which we did.  Overall, it was nice to be at the zoo after hours, but the crowds just weren't worth it.  I wouldn't do it again in the future, but anything is fun once, right?