BioPark

Ever since I began substitute teaching, I've been hearing about the biopark. All the elementary classes take field trips to see it. The BioPark is a zoo, but all the animals are in relatively natural habitats, and many of them can be fed/touched. With our college friends, I had a chance to go and check it out first hand. Here's a sampling of what we saw:




There was a green house FULL of orchids, butterflies and...





... other interesting animals.... Bats are much nicer when they're not in my house.





There was a lovely habitat for prarie dogs in the BioPark, and after we had admired them and taken a few pictures, we walked on from it. Not long after we ran into this guy:





He was also spotted by one of the park employees, who rolled her eyes and got on her radio when she saw him. Soon she and another employee were herding him safely back into his habitat. It appeared that this was a somewhat regular occurance. Interesting stuff...

Not long after we saw the runaway, we stumbled upon the racoon enclosure. The biopark does not, apparently, take any chances at the racoons running away. Their space was enclosed entirely in glass. However, there was a space where two overlapping pieces of glass were left with a gap so that visitors could feed the racoons. When we walked by, all the little buggers crowded up to the glass, anxiously watching for food to drop through this gap, so we decided to feed them. They were so determined to get food that some of them have learned to do this:

Apparently they figure they've got better odds of getting the food as it drops if their paws are actually in the shoot. It almost never worked out for them, but I have to give them credit for trying.

My personal favorite part of the BioPark is the monkey enclosure. Some of the monkeys live on islands, like in zoos in the states, and there are slingshots visitors can use to feed them, but there is also a section where visitors can walk right through a monkey habitat and feed the monkeys right out of their hands. That's where this guy lives:

The monkeys followed us, watching intently to see if we'd go get them some food from the machine, but I have a friend who was recently bit by a monkey there (she's fine, and the doctor says she has nothing to worry about), and I didn't really feel like taking any chances, so we just took our pictures and went on our merry way.
So the BioPark turned out to be everything the kindergarteners claimed it was. There were lots of cool animals, you could feed and touch them, and they were ever so much fun to watch. I'm glad I got a chance to check it out.