The Austin Zoo

Since there was no school today (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), Sydney and I had the whole day off together. I hate to waste a day like this, so I called my friend Kara Hazen (affectionately called "the Haze" by Sydney) to go out and see the Austin Zoo.


I lived here a long time before I even knew Austin had a zoo. From what I have learned, it opened in the 90's and was mostly a rescue for farm animals with special needs and had, at that time, only a few "exotics." Today, they have several exotic animals, including three Bengal tigers, a lion and lioness, many different monkeys and reptiles. Their animals are all rescue or donated and while there are many animals not represented at the Austin Zoo, it's nice to know that all of the animals there really need that home (as opposed to being taken from their home in the wild just to be part of a zoo).


This is Kara and me with the kids, Sydney and Peter. When I got home and showed Jeremy all of the neat pictures of things we did and the animals we saw, the thing that really caught his eye was this: "Did she really wear that hat all day?" Watch for it, because, yes, she did.

The very first animals we saw were the ring tailed lemurs and Sydney thought they were pretty cool. At first she wanted to call them "cats" which I thought made sense, then when she was told they were lemurs, not cats, she decided they were zebras instead. I thought the connection between a zebra's coat and the lemur's black and white striped tail was a neat one.

I forget this monkey's name, but Sydney thought it was cool that he had his own slide. The very same slide, by the way, that Sydney has in her backyard.

These are the Bengal tigers, and although it isn't the best picture of the tiger, it does show just how very close we were to the animals.

There was also a petting zoo and the option to feed the animals. Sydney thought it was a lot of fun to put the animal feed in the animal's trough, but actually holding her hand out for the animals to eat off of was a bit much.


Mostly, though, I loved the "Austin-ness" of the whole thing. There was no concrete, just natural landscaping. As you walked around, you felt like you could chat with the other zoo goers, partly because there were few enough of them, and partly because of a sense of community the place engendered. The rescue nature of the zoo prevented that twinge of guilt or sadness that you get when looking at a caged animal in the zoo. If these animals could go back to the wild, they wouldn't be there. There may not have been very many animals, compared to other zoos, but that just made you remember the ones they had more. The next time we go, we'll look to see if the zebra lemurs are still there, and if the monkey still has a slide, and how the tigers are doing. It feels more personal.

I'm sure we will go back to the Houston Zoo many, many times and enjoy it a lot. I bet we'll also make it to the San Antonio Zoo at least once in Sydney's childhood. I'm not trying to put down the "big" zoos, just saying that it's nice to have a different kind of zoo experience, especially so close to home.