I took Ilia to the Donor Club Weekend at the zoo on Saturday. For members of Keeper level on up, you get to hear the keeper’s talk and learn about the animals. Or at least you could have if the keepers and docents were mic’d. The event ran 8:00am – 10am. There were 6 groups A – F set up around the park, held at different times. The zoo even offered up crafts for kids and breakfast. Unfortunately, we missed that part.
We didn’t get to the zoo until 8:30, missing Group A (seals, alligator and flamingos). This group started at 8:15am. Now, if you know the zoo, you realize that while the seals and the alligator are somewhat close together, the flamingos are pretty far away. Compound that with the fact that the breakfast was held just beyond the flamingos, it leaves you with a general idea of how the day would go.
Because of the short time constraints to hoof it up hills and around the park, we jumped into Group D (orangs, uakari and snow leopards). We were given a map, but it’ snot like the animals are labeled on it, or on any map in the zoo. I have no idea what an uakari is, never seen it before and I’ve been to the zoo 12 times this year, most recently just a few weeks ago. So a little pic (if it’s on the map), doesn’t quite help. I didn’t even know the zoo had snow leopards. But, I overheard a docent telling people where to go for the orangs, so we went up that hill.
I guess there was a misunderstanding, though it still makes no sense. Group D was supposed to start at 8:55. At 9, the keeper said that the other keepers thought the orangs were supposed to be out at 9. Which is nice, but it was 9 when she told us this. At 9:07, she was still using that excuse. The orangs finally came out at 9:12.
Group E (elephants, hippos and takin) started at 9:15. Luckily, those were sorta close to the orangs. The keeper was talking to us from the ditch between the pen an the sidewalk we were on. With the crowd talking, it was ridiculously hard to hear what she was saying. The bull was pretty funny. He really didn’t like her giving us attention, so he started spraying her. I think it was actually spit coming from his trunk. He kept doing that and throwing leaves at her. She made him back up, then she asked him to smile and growl and nod his head. The kids were totally delighted. Later he tried to get her attention again.
This time, he ripped all the leaves off the tree branch (see it in the bottom of the photo) and wrapped his trunk around it. He lifted it up, and she said, “Don’t. Even. Think. About it. Back it up! Now.” He put that branch down so fast and backed away.
Group F were the lions and giraffe’s. I couldn’t quite hear the keeper for the lions as she was trying to speak over 60 or so people. The lions were probably the most active I have ever seen them.
At this point, I was completely disappointed that in 2007, the LA Zoo couldn’t possibly be bothered with mic’ing their workers for events like this. It seemed rather pointless to get up so early, only to not be able to learn or hear anything most of the time. We went over the giraffes, but we couldn’t hear the speaker either, so we just went to wait for the chimps.
Now, this is where I was really upset over the whole thing. The keeper came out with her camera and started talking. It seems that I was the only person trying to hear what she what she said. I was sitting about 10 feet away and could barely make out what she was saying. I gestured that she should speak louder, but she didn’t even try. About 4 times she said, “If you have any questions just ask me.”, but she spent most of the time taking pics of the chimps. Everyone sitting on the stairs was like, “What happened to the speaker?” I said, “Look up the hill, you can see her up there. She said if you have questions to ask her. No one asked.” They replied, “I didn’t even hear her say that. I didn’t even see her!”
Oh well. We got to the zoo. As you can see from the photos they’re pretty bad. The way the pens were set up and the sun hitting the animals, it really wasn’t worth it to take pics unless you had a super camera. Most of the animals were in shade and the sun was in your eyes. That’s okay, we have a membership; I can take pics of the animals any time.
faboo mama 