Zoo

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
More than I really wanted to know about running a Zoo. Feeding, culling, moving, medicating... The real nitty gritty. (Aside) The author, at one time, hides a big chunk of meat high in a tree branch in the lion's enclosure and it takes the lioness three days to figure out how to get it. (keeping her entertained)



I'm a little ambivalent about Zoos, but they seem to have improved the habitat for the animals greatly since I was a child. I do remember two Zoos particularly from when our daughters were small.



There was a nice Zoo in Stoneham, Mass. when we lived outside of Boston that had a great Polar Bear. He had an enclosure with a big, deep moat between him and the public. They had given him an empty beer keg to play with and he would grab it and jump on it into the moat. When he sunk to the bottom he would let go of the keg and it would burst up out of the water, spraying everywhere. A real crowd pleaser! He also liked to bite the stream of water when the caretaker hosed down his place.



The other Zoo was the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo outside of Colorado Springs. The giraffe enclosure was able to be viewed from two levels, since the Zoo was built into the side of the mountain. From the top view, you were about eye level with the giraffes.


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