Day 92 - Calgary Zoo

Got up and my last full day in Canada / abroad was a great day to be outdoors. Thus it was off to the Calgary Zoo in search of a moose :P My guide book made a major boo-boo. It was meant to be a half price day at around $5.00. Was full price day at $16 ... just a little difference.

Walked in and it was off to the North America section in search of a moose. Saw mountain goats, bison, lots of deer of various species, sheep, foxes, wolves and finally a moose! This was about as active as it got however:



Incidently with the wolves enclosure, the zoo keeper was throwing sticks into it and the wolves were just pouncing on them and crunching them up. Apparently for the reason that it was just a foreign object in their territeary - see below



One thing I was really surprised with was seeing a porcupine. I just thought that they would be a similar animal to Australia's eckidna having a similar defense mechanism - spikes. Actually they are very different creatures. Porcupine is much bigger with spines like fine bits of hair. Eckidna has more bulky needle like structures. This is a porcupine ... asleep... didn't move from this position. A couple of others further around the corner were doing the same thing.



The other main thing I wanted to see where bears. There was a good description on the difference between Black and Grizzly Bears. Like most other animals, they were asleep and not doing much. Did manage to catch a few Black Bears coming out of their cave long enough to have a look around before going back into the cave.



Managed to see some cougars wandering around for a bit before looking for a place to sleep. Next off to the prehistoric area. This had dinosaur models ... didn't have to feed them much. Unfortunately the whole display was based upon the idea of being around a swamp land.

However, in Calgary, water freezes during the winter, so the 'lake' was drained so as not to damage the place. It does however kill the effect a little bit.



Maybe I've been spoilt with the Dubbo Zoo where I lived, but the elephant enclosure here didn't inspire me. You had 4 large elephants in a very small space. These are the sorts of creatures that really need to move about. It was also interesting to see the capping on this elephant. I can only hypothesis as to its purpose as I couldn't find a zookeeper around to ask questions



This was an elephant tusk / ivory that has been carved. Interesting to note the context on this. Recently I've seen wonderfully detailed carved ivory in museums and admired the craftsmanship. Here I see it in an animal/zoo context, an somewhat disgusted at the notion. Maybe because it just looks far too much like an elephants tusk.



This was a creature I didn't even know existed but such a striking colour. It is a Red Panda. Kinda like a giant cat but more stocky.



While I was in the nocturnal area, came across this frog and knew it was going to make some great photos - just loved the light on it.



I'd pretty much covered the whole zoo so thought I'd walk into the Australian section. Had some other people coming into the room and trying to name various animals and couldn't get any of them. Was interesting to notice just how well you know your own local fourna and flora as I could name them exactly. Also just shows how different the local critters are that we take for granted.

Did manage to see a tree kangaroo which I'd never seen before. I looked on the distribution map to see where in the world they live ... and not in Australia. That was kinda curious given you only find other kangaroos in Australia.



The Calgary Zoo certainly was worth visiting. The guide book mentioned it was one of the better ones in North America. Maybe I'm bias, but the Dubbo Zoo I still feel is better than this. The animals have more space, the enclosures feel better laid out with a wider variety and diversity of animals (just no bears, wolves or moose).