In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

I was going to make my birthday pretty standard....go into the office, meet up with friends for drinks and maybe hit up the gym in the meantime. But since I don't really HAVE to go into the office and the gym will be there tomorrow, I took up my roommates offer to go to the zoo with parents that were in town. First off, I honestly haven't been to a zoo since the Bronx Zoo when I was about seven years old. After college in Columbus, Ohio and living an hour and half from San Diego, two places with some of the best zoos (or should it be spelled zooz??) in the world, I'm not much of a zoolologist. But the bonus of going to Taronga Zoo here in Sydney is the ferry ride across the famous Sydney Harbour, and checking off another tourist attraction while noticing Australia's unique wildlife.

The ferry ride, which I've pretty much taken before, lived up to the billing, even in 32+ degree heat. Oh right, the metric system....well, 32 is pretty hot, almost 90 farenheit. I was getting a little jealous of the seals, swimming in those nice pools throughout the day. But as we spent more and more time there, I couldn't help but think that the zoo is a bit of a ripoff. I mean, it's cool to see the monkees and koalas up in the trees and swinging around, but I feel like half the time it was trying to see animals that were either asleep or hidden behind rocks.

Of course I was mindful of how these animals are taken out of their natural habitat, which is a concern, but they're the rock stars of this place, so that's no biggie. In the wild, they'd be another schmo sitting in a tree. But here, people wanna take pics, hug them, buy stuffed replicas of them. So that's not the problem.

I just want my lions and tigers and bears to be omnipresent and as a bonus, even walking around, playing, eating...something. Sure, it's an uncontrolled environment, so that's why those little ampitheatre shows are the best part. It's like you're at a mini Pearl Jam show with Mimi the seal as Eddie Vedder. But outside of the seal concerts (nice pun!), I spent half the time trying to figure out what animals I was looking at and even if they were even in the cages.

Not sure if Jack Hanna or Joan Embry are listening (wow, how do I know two zookeepers? Oh right, Letterman and Johnny Carson), but let's get those animals out there...give em a song and dance routine, something. I mean, you are giving them wonderful 20x20 home, you might as well make them work for it!