dragoness_e | I went on down to the Audubon Zoo...

My husband and I went to the zoo today--first time I've gone since Hurricane Katrina. First impressions: they've done a great job of cleaning up after the hurricane damage. Some exhibits are still closed, and some sections are still being renovated, and some of the enclosures need a bit of re-landscaping, but all in all, it looks good. Most of the animals are back, and the people are certainly back and having a good time.

Weekdays are field trip days for the local schools, apparently. There were about a jillion happy kids in the uniforms of local schools, in small groups with their chaperones. There were also quite a few mothers with toddlers, who were just wide-eyed and fascinated by the animals. And teen-agers as well. The human-watching was as interesting, if not more interesting, than the animal-watching. There is something immensely cheering in watching happy kids--especially when you point out the leopard cub hiding in the shadows and they get all wide-eyed and go "Wow!".

Speaking of the leopards--the Amur Leopard cage was one of the most interesting exhibits. It's a family group-male, female, and 2 female cubs. And they're all very good at hiding; if you just glance at the habitat, it appears empty. But look around, and you see the large tail hanging off an elevated platform near the roof, and a small pile of spots on that ledge over there, and a bigger pile of spots behind it on the same ledge, and--look, there's a cub over on another ledge that decided to go rambling!

We watched one cub climb up a vine to a high ledge, and curl up for a nap. The other cub decided to follow its mama around the cage, running up and down logs, climbed up to where dad was napping, tried to get dad to play by walking all over him, climbed up the vine to where the other cub was, got bored, climbed back down, and ran in the cave in the back. Mama followed it now and then to where she could watch the busy cub.

The native ducks and turtles were almost as interesting as the "official" exhibits, since they were flocking about and all but begging for crumbs and food. The turtles in the various ponds were quite active, and there were a lot of tiny baby turtles. In one of the zoo ponds, the sunlight was at just the right angle so you could see to the bottom, and you could see the big alligator snapping turtle lurking under the overlook--waiting for one of the kids to fall in, I guess. There were also some big soft shell turtles, and a buttload of red-eared terrapins. And lots of those pretty, pretty wood ducks. We even saw some ducklings.

I swear both the gorillas and the orangutans are watching the humans as much as the humans were watching them.

beckyh2112, over where the old McDonald's used to be, was the Constructicon enclosure. Okay, actually, they are rebuilding that area, and some heavy equipment there.

The otters were as playful as usual, and the white alligator is full grown and still looks like a plastic gator--a big plastic gator. The regular gators looked dead on the shore, except when they decided to move, like they always do. The bobcats were frisky; one of them saw something outside his cage that looked edible, and rushed all the way to the top of the cage, climbing the wire as he went--but whatever it was didn't stick around in reach.

The jaguar, as usual, looked like it was contemplating those little kids for lunch. Since I've seen that particular jaguar try to jump my large husband through the glass in times past, I pretty sure he really was thinking that a tender young child would be tasty for dinner. He's one of the few large predators at the zoo that I seriously believe would be a man-eater if given the chance.

The zoo has a whole lot more golden tamarins than I remember, and they are the cutest little things. They were climbing all over their enclosure, and one of them had a baby on her back which was even tinier--aagggh, the cute! *dies* (Speaking of cute, the leopard cubs were just killing everyone who came to watch with cuteness).

We didn't get to the reptile house, or the Tropical Aviary this trip, and the Sea Lions are still out of town until renovations are finished in May. The canines were all flopped out asleep in the shade--maned wolves, wild dogs, etc. So were most of the big cats, including the asian lions and both white tigers. Mid-day is not the time to look for active animals.

We finally headed home after some ice cream (lunch was at the Lousiana Swamp Exhibit); the sun was getting to be a bit much, and we were both tired after hiking around the zoo for over three hours. We'll have to get back there again soon--we both had far too much fun. I also want to see how the Aquarium has recovered.