ZOOTOPIA

I love the thought of going to the zoo, it brings back some nice childhood memories. Riding the miniature train around the zoo, eating a picnic on the central oval, watching the elephant pace up and down in its' concrete prison....yeah well maybe not all good memories.

Larger and more pics at YeLPanorama

The reality is that the zoo is a sad place. As a kid I never really saw the bored animals, the slightly deranged ones, the listless monkeys. It was a zoo, it was exotic. It was Victorian, oh so very Victorian. Concrete cages, cement caves, wrought iron pens. The animals were merely objects of curiosity, we even had a Polar Bear on display, seriously, we had a Polar Bear on display in our climate. Poor thing, it must have really suffered. They eventually wised up and sent it elsewhere. I've even heard stories of a smoking chimp being on display back in the day.

But today it's a different story, the animals are still sad and often listless but they do make an effort to provide surroundings that resemble their natural habitat and over all the animals don't look quite as sad as they used to, but...

lion

zebra1

rhino

zebra bw1

I still try to seek out the old bits of the zoo when I go, there's bits here and there if you look for them. The old entrance is almost entirely enveloped in the new cafe area but the old carousel is still going strong....

Carousel

They've even kept those scary caves that used to house the wolves and the bears, man I used to run away from this display when I was a kid, it gave me the creeps, still does a bit....

caves bw1

caves

And it's good to see that the humans have a display area at the zoo as well, stay classy Perth....

grafitti1

Not the same water....obviously, can anyone say lunch?

eat
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Comments

Maja said…
You're right. They all look pretty sad.