Always use all the tools available to you to solve a difficult problem, whether you think they’re helpful or not. Always pay attention to what the animals are trying to tell you. And learn, learn, learn every single day, such as what noise a caged fox makes, or how to follow your instincts.
A friend called me about a suffering animal and I had the means and the ability to get there in time, rescue it from danger, and transport it to a safe and healing place, all of my own accord.
If you’ve known me for a while, you’ll know that the last seven or so years have been a challenge. But this year… this year already feels different. It’s a feeling of a different energy level that I have no intention of questioning; no, I’m just going to ride this one as long as it…
There are several reasons that will account for the current state of my blog posts here; I’ll try to just talk about the most salient ones, or this could be my longest piece ever.
This was a very important birth within the population of North American Masai giraffes. Mstari was the number one most valuable female genetically (as far as I can tell, she still is) and I believe Kiko was number three or four. Add to that the fact that the new baby is a third-generation Toronto Zoo kid (her mom, Mstari, and grandma, Twiga, were each born in Toronto as well) and you have a very highly anticipated event.
I have surprisingly few photos of Kanzi in my collection, all things considered. The main reason for this is because she’s almost always right up against the glass when I go to see her, purring away and trying to catch my scent. Most of the time I am far too focused on chatting with Kanzi to even think about taking a picture; besides, it’s too close to get a decent shot with my DSLR, but every now and then I manage to grab a quick snap of her with my phone.
Sometimes he will be front and centre on a perch; sometimes in amongst the foliage looking for bugs or some food that has been hidden for him; you can also often find him on the ground near the front of his exhibit; or he could be very high up near the pavilion roof, surveying his domain and possibly having a long, involved conversation with our male white-handed gibbon, Lenny.
There are couple of things that set sheep apart from goats, but an easy one to spot is whether their tails stand up or hang down (check out the photo above to see which applies to sheep). But something they have in common are amazing, rectangular pupils.
I had gone to the Zoo for an entirely different purpose when I happened on Matilda in the indoor pool by herself, either just before or just after she had been given access to the outdoor pool for the very first time. She was having an awesome time cavorting about and grooming herself and I stayed for quite a while with her.
It was wonderful to have such charismatic animals back on the Tundra Trek and their exhibit was a great place to hang out for a while when the Arctic wolf cubs were sleeping; as I visited the cubs many, many times during the spring and summer of 2018, I had lots of opportunity to spend time with the lads, whom our exceedingly English-speaking Keepers had taken to calling “Thunder” and “Storm.”
The Grumpy Penguin 
You must be logged in to post a comment.