Zoo Snoozin!

Last week I got an email from my friend Carol – she had planned a field trip to the zoo for a ‘Zoo Snooze’ and a few of her students backed out at the last minute.  Since the trip was pre-paid, the spots were paid for, and Carol wanted to fill them – so she thought of me, her friend, the zoo lover, and I of course JUMPED at the opportunity!

I took my two oldest daughters since the age requirements for the trip excluded my 3-year-old Disney and of course my almost 2-year-old, who I wouldn’t have wanted along anyway.  Poor Hubby had to stay home with the little ones, and how I missed him!  (and the little ones)  But other than that –  Best.  Zoo.  Trip.  EVER!!!

Because of legality reasons, my daughters and I were not allowed to ride the school bus with the rest of the group.  So my friend Carol graciously arranged for us to ride with one of her student’s parents who were chaperoning – they were the nicest people!  They were actually going to take their pickup truck, but upon learning that they’d have 3 hitchhikers, they switched vehicles to their SUV without complaint – how accommodating!  We followed the bus to the zoo, and we hiked across the zoo carting our sleeping bags, pillows and backpacks, and I was EXCITED beyond belief!!  We set down our stuff in Nature’s Neighborhood (where the birds were screaming) and walked over to the primate building where we got to watch the primates after zoo hours and listen to a zookeeper talk about her interactions with the primate families.  We then went into the Museum of Science building (this is at the Toledo Zoo, don’t know if I mentioned which zoo it was…) into  a classroom in the basement to listen to a worker tell about 3 animals – a box turtle, a salamander, and a rat (my girls were more than happy to volunteer the info that they had FOUR pet rats at home!).  After listening to facts about the animals, we got to touch them, and I had already promised myself I would touch it no matter what – not a big deal, I love animals, so I don’t have a problem touching regardless of species…  except for my fear of frogs, but had there been a frog, I was going to touch it!  We switched classrooms and did the same thing with 3 more animals: a cockroach, an agama (type of lizard – cute!), and a fox snake.  Because the group sizes for Zoo Snoozes are supposed to be 25-50 people, they had actually paired our group of 11 with a rather large school group from Northern Michigan.  When we were in the classrooms doing the animal activities, they separated our groups, and I was so glad because it would have been difficult for our kids to see and touch the animals if we were still combined with the huge Michigan group.

Next we went to the Carnivore Cafe (used to be an exhibit building that housed animals and they left some of the cages up for kids to eat in – they get a big kick out of this) for our snack of pizza, raisins, juice, and animal cookies.

We then went for a night hike, and walking around the zoo in the dark under the full moon was amazing.  We could hear the lions roaring, the snow leopards making cat noises, and when we walked past the cheetah exhibit, they were quite active.  One sprayed a tree, and then he began stalking us, slowly walking toward us and then running at us and jumping on the fence!  I didn’t have my camera out when he jumped at the fence, but here he is stalking us – listen for the little cheetah “meow” at the end:

The zookeeper said that the cheetahs like to stalk toddlers who can barely walk, and they especially have fun with this during the zoo’s Halloween celebration when parents bring their kids who dress up like cute and cuddly things – like little bunnies or other tasty cheetah snacks.

So we took  a night hike to the aquarium, and it was neat to see the keepers turn on the lights for us.  Even the fish were acting differently at night –  some fish appeared that we don’t normally see during the day when we come, and others were swimming in schools when they don’t usually do that during the day.

After the night hike, we made enrichment treats for the animals – there were four to choose from:  melon bombs for the elephants (you make holes in watermelons and stick carrot sticks in there), pumpkin cookies and paper towel tubes  for the primates, and snack bags for the elephants.  My oldest daughter made primate tubes, and Sammie and I made elephant snack bags – you put an apple, a pear, and a handful each of peanuts and popcorn in the bags and roll them shut and decorate them.  We were incredibly surprised the next morning when we watched Louie the elephant (and it was his 7th birthday!) take our treat bags and pop the whole things into his mouth (bags and all!) without even opening them first!  Here is a video of Louie eating our bags – too bad I couldn’t get out from behind the girl with the ponytail:

After making the enrichments, we went back to a classroom and played an animal training games using a training clicker – I have to get myself one of those and follow the puppy around for a day or two to housebreak him!  Wonder when I’ll find the time for that?  After the game, it was finally time for bed, and we got to choose if we wanted to separate from the Michigan group.  We chose yes, leaving them to sleep with the screaming parrots – I get enough of that at home!  And sure enough, they reported to us the next day that the birds were up and screaming at 5am.  I  would not have been too happy about that, especially since we didn’t get to bed until 1am!  So we took our stuff and slept in one of the classrooms in the basement of the Museum of Science which was pretty neat – it’s a well-kept 1930’s Works Progress Association building, and we got to wander the winding basement hallways back and forth to the bathroom.  Never mind that the building is home to hundreds of frogs and toads –  they were upstairs, and I didn’t give them any thought.

I think I will end it here and save day 2 of the Zoo Snooze for another post – this turned out to be a rather long post, and even though it’s difficult for me to understand, not everyone loves zoos as much as I do.  I don’t want to bore the heck out of anyone!

Lisa