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sarcasticah, her husband, p_j_cleary and I went to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. It's very near where Team sarcasticah and I live; I've been meaning to go there forever since it's only a few miles away and I drive by it all the time. I used to go often as a little kid and haven't been there since.
It's pretty small. There are only a few separate exhibit areas, arranged by topic: Windows to the Wild, Treasures of the Sierra Madre, Yukon Creek, Himalayan Highlands, and Barnyard. We hit most of them (although we missed a bunch of Yukon Creek, judging by my little map). The least impressive was the Himalayan Highlands. There were supposed to be wolves there, but they must have been sleeping somewhere.
There were a few times that I felt like that scene in Jurassic Park where the recorded tour guide says something like "to your left you'll see Velociraptors" and everyone cranes around; "where? I can't see....?" No wolves, no otters, the snow leopard was sleeping so hard he looked dead, and a couple others were so wedged into corners you really couldn't see them. But that's cool. Can't all be posing prettily just because I wander by.
I guess my major complaint about the experience overall was the basic lack of maintenance. Every glass window was so filthy with fingerprints and whatever that it was pretty hard to see inside. Other parts of the zoo looked like something cool used to be there, or maybe something cool will be there someday, but right now? Not so much.
The meerkat exhibit could have been totally cool, but again suffered from a lack of presentation. There were four tiny meerkats in a big tank-like enclosure, inside a dark room with a big emergency-light type spotlight turned on. They looked like an afterthought, and yet they were one of the major stars of the zoo this month.
Anyway, zoos make me a little sad. I know that modern zoos stock mostly animals raised in captivity or animals that for whatever reason wouldn't make it in the wild, but I still feel sad, looking at their tiny enclosures, picturing them dreaming of a different life.
The rest of the set of photos here.
sarcasticah, her husband, p_j_cleary and I went to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. It's very near where Team sarcasticah and I live; I've been meaning to go there forever since it's only a few miles away and I drive by it all the time. I used to go often as a little kid and haven't been there since.It's pretty small. There are only a few separate exhibit areas, arranged by topic: Windows to the Wild, Treasures of the Sierra Madre, Yukon Creek, Himalayan Highlands, and Barnyard. We hit most of them (although we missed a bunch of Yukon Creek, judging by my little map). The least impressive was the Himalayan Highlands. There were supposed to be wolves there, but they must have been sleeping somewhere.
There were a few times that I felt like that scene in Jurassic Park where the recorded tour guide says something like "to your left you'll see Velociraptors" and everyone cranes around; "where? I can't see....?" No wolves, no otters, the snow leopard was sleeping so hard he looked dead, and a couple others were so wedged into corners you really couldn't see them. But that's cool. Can't all be posing prettily just because I wander by.
I guess my major complaint about the experience overall was the basic lack of maintenance. Every glass window was so filthy with fingerprints and whatever that it was pretty hard to see inside. Other parts of the zoo looked like something cool used to be there, or maybe something cool will be there someday, but right now? Not so much.
The meerkat exhibit could have been totally cool, but again suffered from a lack of presentation. There were four tiny meerkats in a big tank-like enclosure, inside a dark room with a big emergency-light type spotlight turned on. They looked like an afterthought, and yet they were one of the major stars of the zoo this month.
Anyway, zoos make me a little sad. I know that modern zoos stock mostly animals raised in captivity or animals that for whatever reason wouldn't make it in the wild, but I still feel sad, looking at their tiny enclosures, picturing them dreaming of a different life.
The rest of the set of photos here.
