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.”
There have been countless new and beautiful babies born in and around the Zoo since then – and in other Zoos and locations, too. But, to my mind, the most beautiful of all were born last of all when Ena, another first-time mom, gave birth on May 18, 2017 during a month-long strike at the Toronto Zoo.
I did learn a few more interesting tidbits while researching the chamois for this post. First of all, I confirmed that pronouncing it “sham-wah” is the most correct, but saying “shammy” as in the cleaning cloth which used to be made from the hide of this animal is acceptable as well. “Sham-wow”, on the other hand, is not acceptable, as that is an “As Seen on TV” cleaning product from Germany, and “you know the Germans always make good stuff” according to Headset Vince.
…regular readers of my blog posts or visitors to my Zoo tours will know what makes these animals “monkeys” and not “apes” – and it’s not their size. In case you don’t fall into one of those categories, here’s the difference: monkeys have tails and apes do not. Easy-peasy.
The Grumpy Penguin 