Week of July 11th 2011: San Francisco Zoo

Is it ok if I make up for missing weeks by doing two posts in one week? Can I just average 52 posts a year? Ironically, I tend to have a few "draft" posts but none of them were quite ready for publishing. In either case, my warning is that with studying, work, and some semblance of a life - I'm stretched a little thin for the next few weeks but I will definitely make it up to you. Anyways, enough of my excuses...

I love animals and so I really like zoos. Growing up in LA, I went to an amazing zoo fairly often. When I was in college, I decided to check out the Oakland zoo and was really disapointed. I'd heard bad things about the San Francisco Zoo as well so I was skeptical about going. However, my last job started having an annual volunteer day and one of the options was a day doing landscaping at the zoo. I don't mind manual labor and it was a chance to check out the zoo so I decided to sign up for it.

I got to pet you!

The morning at the zoo was really fun. Because there were a few different options for the volunteer day, it really split up our company and I got to interact with some people I don't get to talk to as much. Even though I knew I wouldn't be there much longer, it never hurts to be nice and get to know the people that you work with.

Since we had a pretty big group, we finished the area of the zoo that they had set out for us with plenty of time before we had to go back to work. In order to thank us for the hard work, the zoo gave us a special treat - we got to pet a Koala bear!!!

Koala bears aren't really what you'd expect... they fur is almost like petting a coarse poodle... very fluffy. The eucalyptus leaves make their fur smell amazing as well. The Koala we got to pet was "friendly" but you could tell he was still quite shy.

After the Koala bear petting, we got a brief tour of the zoo. I was really excited to get to see the tigers. Say what you will about tigers in San Francisco (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not going to learn here), they are my favorite animal. The SF zoo had several tigers and each had their own habitat, plenty of room to pace, and were easy to see. I feel like whenever I go to a zoo, the tigers are sleeping or hiding. In Oakland, the viewing areas were so small it was impossible to see anything. However, at the SF zoo, they were awake and almost eerily watching us. I made a little video of one of them pacing.

The rest of the tour was pretty brief. We saw a lot of the usual animals but there was one other stand out. The SF zoo had a few little penguins. Apparently they are a special breed that can handle warmer climates. I'd never seen those before so that was really cool.

Like I said, I really love animals and I really want to go back to the zoo some day. They actually have volunteer days some Saturdays and I've been meaning to go back. If anyone would like to join me, let me know and I send you the information.