We don’t have a zoo in my city, but we have what we call a mini zoo in what were the moats of the city walls. It’s a pretty big extension, no longer full of water to stop the enemy. Now that there is no enemy to stop, there is grass instead of water, and it forms an enormous green area all around the city.
Around a big park named La Taconera, it has several ponds with all kinds of ducks, goose, and swans. There are also other animals like roosters, peacocks, pheasants, and other birds and a small herd of deer that usually lives in the top of the wall in a higher level than the rest of the animals . Sometimes wild birds stop there for a while to have a rest and look for food in this area. I spotted recently a couple of grey herons, and a hoopoe.
Everything family scale and it’s free. People like to walk and look at the animals. The view is always different, because they move around the moat. The only ones that never move from its place are the goose.
I’ve visited zoos, when I was a kid, but they make me a little sad above all to see the big wild animals in enclosed areas.
Once, I think it was in Barcelona, we entered the zoo and we saw a hippo peeing. We made a tour and when we came back to the hippo enclosure, he was still peeing and had formed a big puddle around him. That impressed me a lot. ¿How many litres can pee a hippo? I looked for an answer and nobody would give me one.
I love big cats, but not in captivity, I prefer to watch a good documentary. But I like documentaries focused in the beauty of the nature and the animals, not gloating on the cruelty of the wild life. We have every day enough cruelty in the news, close to our lives, to search for more blood when we try to relax watching something simply beautiful.
interesting 🙂