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Saturday, September 8, 2007

B.A. Zoo Double Plus Good

I must admit, I didn't have very high hopes for the zoo located 6 blocks from my house. I never really visited until today, after a failed gym session (not for lack of effort; the gym closes for four hours in the middle of Saturdays for a siesta). Once I set aside all of animal cruelty concerns (you really have to if you're going to visit any zoo), I quickly realized that the Buenos Aires zoological garden was the coolest zoo I had ever visited.

First of all, you know how in American zoos, squirrels and sometimes peacocks will wander around the premises. Well, you'll never guess what loving critters wander around this zoo freely, begging for food. Nutrias. That's right, Nutrias, from the Scientific Order Rodentia. The Smed panic scale immediately jumped to a red alert upon seeing these giant rat-looking creatures, and remained elevated at orange throughout the rest of my zoo visit. After all, I first became acquainted with nutria by seeing them swimming in ditches in southeast Texas. Terrifying.

But here, the nutria is a beloved creature. Children run up to them to pet them, and then the nutria dance a bit, begging for food and wagging their humongous rat tail. I could only stare at this scene and frantically look around me about every minute and a half looking for attacking nutria.

After I got used to the nutria, the rest of the zoo did not disappoint. Every animal is extremely active. It's not like US zoos, where you walk around looking at various animals taking naps. Oh no. I watched a lagoon of hippos for 20 minutes because they were literally leaping out of the water and throwing themselves onto each other as part of some hippopotamus frolicking game. There was even a baby hippo who would jump out of the water and nibble on his mother's (I assume) snout. Argentine hippos have so much more energy than US hippos. Either that or US hippos are kept drugged up and calm.

The rest of the animals were just as entertaining, but for a different reason. Basically, zoo patrons can feed almost any animal at the zoo. The zoo has placed grooved ramps between the safety fences and the animals so that people can roll pellets to the animals. But most people directly feed the animal or throw the feed into their mouth. Animals you were allowed to feed included elephants, zebras, camels, baboons, and a host of other strange animals.

The baboons would take turns sitting at the various feeding ramps and showing off in return for some food. The camel stood right at the fence with its mouth wide open. No, you couldn't feed the big cats, so instead they would put huge hunks of meat in their cages to keep them lively. And lively they were.

Reason #1093 to visit Buenos Aires: Crazy rule-free zoo where children cavort with nutria and laughingly feed howling monkeys.

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