an awesome thing i did today

so today i went to the ueno zoo… it was kind of depressing… for instance ling ling the panda now lives at the ueno zoo.. the oldest zoo in nippon. ling ling is relagated to a room that is lined with tile and is fed dumplings consisting of apples and chicken. i’m pretty positive that ling ling didnt eat dumplings in the mountainous regions of china… granted he gets as much bamboo as he wants in his room, im sure he didn’t relegate himself to 20 sq. m of space with tile floor… or consider dumplings the majority of his diet. i know that pandas are one of the dumbest creatures on earth (who else survives on a terribly threatened species of bamboo in a terribly threatened forested region of china and only mates every so often to produce one baby), but i was surprised to see that the san diego zoo traded the ueno zoo for ling ling.

i’d say even though it was definately cool to see the greater asian take on the zoo, it was basically just as depressing as most zoos. i saw a bunch of incredible birds, like the secretary bird, that i will never see in the wild  but it was kind of a drag to see them in the middle of tokyo in a small enclosure.

this picture does no justice to the awesomeness that is the secretary bird.

the ueno zoo definately excels in birds and small mammals. i think i saw stuff that id never see in an american zoo. considering that it cost about 5 bucks to get in (600¥) it was a deal. when it came to the larger mammals/reptiles.. it got pretty depressing.

i would like to assume that most of the larger mammals were raised in captavity and just didnt grow as large as most of their wild counterparts. the lions and tigers seemed pretty small, considering the hype that they get as ferocious beasts. granted the tigers were asiatic tigers, i still wouldn’t step to them. they seemed to be a little smaller than i would have assumed, but still ferocious.

the asiatic elephants were in this tiny pen (compared to their size)… and there were 4 or 5 of them… so i didnt think that was that cool…

on the other hand, i dont know if youve taken the time to appreciate the alien-like nature of an elephants skull/physique

a bunch of the birds at the zoo have pretty dinosaur-like features…totally wild… so i think thats definately a good point of argument for evolution people… there are some wild creatures out there

the monkeys, arguably the most intelligent and human-like creatures at the zoo, seemed so bummed out to be stuck in cages… the just sat and stared at the people or huddled in the back and slept… drag city

the polar bears had a relatively realistic enclosure, but all they did was pace back and forth along this cliff that was closest to the fence and kind of pose/glare menacingly towards everybody… all day.

drag city.

i saw this guy feed the penguins and the shore/ocean birds and that was cool.. he threw fish to to the cranes and seagulls and stuff, then went in the enclosure and all the penguins waddled out of the pool and followed the dude and he fed each of the penguins a fish as they waited around him. super cute.. i didnt know that there was a type of penguin called the jackass penguin… oddly enough the king penguins (like the ones in march of the penguins) had this totally crappy enclosure behind this glass wall and all 8 of them just stood there, beaks against the glass, and  just stared at the people passing by… i guess macaroni penguins and jackass penguins are more managable… youd think theyd give every flightless bird a sweet enclosure… its not like they can hop the fence and fly away

there were some sweet nocturnal mammals, notably the leopard cat, the flying fox and the pangolin…

i saw a giant anteater, which was cool cause the UCI mascot is the anteater… they are also fed a diet that doesnt consist of what they naturally eat… mostly chicken. so weird.. but they feed the anteater this mix of ground chicken and greens in this bucket type carafe thing that they hang outside the fence of the enclosure and the anteater uses his super long tongue to reach down the narrow neck of the bucket and scoop out the contents inside. i got there way after feeding time, when there were only scraps left in the bucket, to see some japanese girl lifting the bucket so that the anteater could get all the scraps inside… cute and weird. firstly anteaters dont eat chicken… and secondly anteaters dont eat ants out of carafe shaped buckets. zoos are kind of weird. but i did get a first-hand look at the incredible anteater tongue.

i saw capybaras… which are pretty cool because they are like giant guinea pigs. there was a mom and a dad and a baby one. pretty cute.

soon after seeing the anteater i met a really nice canadian dude and we walked through the rest of the zoo and got a beer afterwards and went our seperate ways… really nice dude though.

the most notable thing after the anteater were the hippos and the crocodile.

the hippos (both regular and pygmy sized) were in enclosures that seemed way too small, but it seems like hippos are pretty lazy and as long as they have a pool to chill in they dont care…

the croc on the other hand practically took up the entire pool that it had… i didnt remember how big they were! the funny thing was that i saw the dwarf crocs first and i just assumed that they were so small as a result of living in such small quarters.. then the next pool was the full sized croc pool and this thing was GIANT! it was asleep, but it was absolutely enormous! totally 6-10 meters long! i felt bad for it because it was in an enclosure that was basically the length of itself though… i’ve seen planet earth... crocs are one of the most brutal animals on earth… if the macaques get a mountain, the crocodile definately deserves a bigger enclosure! (ps: baby macaques are impossibly adorable.. basically a mcnugget for a crocodile… i think an adult macaque is still nugget sized to a croc)

so all in all, it was cheap and it took up most of my day, but it was also kind of depressing to see the larger mammals stuck in such dinky cages…. i saw some incredible birds and other stuff, and i cant recall the last time i went to a zoo, so it was definately worth the 5 bucks.. and i met a canadian! good times… but you should probably take the 5 bucks youd spend to go to the ueno zoo and just go rent planet earth, which is the most breathtaking, incredibly filmed and impossibly awesome animal/nature documentary ive ever seen (get the bbc one, not the discovery channel one, it sounds way cooler with attenborough narrating instead of sigourney weaver)

maybe i’m just uneducated and unsophisticated, but i get this totally silly childlike giddyness everytime i go to a museum or a zoo/aquarium… ironically i hated most of the times i was made to go to them as a child, except for the flight museum in dc… that museum rules! looking back, i wish i had appreciated all those times more. knowledge rules. theres no time to bemoan all the knowledge i should have gained.. theres just time to go out and gain more!

get smart!