Day 39 - Go to "Zoorotica"

Date: February 14th, 2010

I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day.  Let's just say I'm a love diabetic - too much sugary-sweet-lovey-dovey goodness and I'm in a bad way.  Its not that I don't get giddy for flowers and candy.  I do.  Its called being female.  Look it up.

Its just that, for some reason, Valentine's Day is the one time a year that my need to be non-traditional kicks into overdrive.  Despite having a boyfriend for most of the Valentine's Days of my undergrad years, I still partook in Singles Awareness Day celebrations.  To be fair, it was a long distance relationship so, it was like being single.  Lisa, Alana and I would go to restaurants in Ann Arbor and write sweet nothings to waiters on the bill.  And then we'd pay in cash and not eat there again for a month.  It captured both the hopeful promise of new love and the inevitable ennui of rejection associated with the holiday.  Well, and it kept me out of trouble with the boyfriend for not actually hitting on random waiters.  Then again, I don't remember if I actually told him about Singles Awareness Day celebrations so... there's that.

This year, being actually single, it seemed too boring to have a little Singles Awareness Day celebration.  So, instead, I went to a couples activity with a friend of mine.  A romantic stroll in the park?  Dinner for two over a candlelit table in a quiet restaurant?  Perhaps a rom-com at the local theater?  No!  Not when there's... Zoorotica!

When I first mentioned Zoorotica to, well, everyone, I got the same basic question: "what the heck is Zoorotica and why would you want to do it?".  After the obligatory "that's two questions, idiot", I answered the same way each time.  I had no idea what Zoorotica was, but I had a general range of possibilities landing on a scale of life-affirming and beautiful down to horrors worse than a bad neighborhood in Tijuana.  Optimism and reckless abandonment compelled me to get tickets.

The way I figured it, I'd just make sure we were parked near the exit in case Zoorotica was something terrible.  At the same time, it was being hosted by the Binder Park Zoo, which is a privately owned, non-profit zoo.  That and Kermit combine to form the definition of family friendly.  So, it couldn't possibly be all that bad.  That and I dragged Justin with me so that if it was awful I'd have someone with whom to share my trauma as the weeks and months went on.

 

Clearly he's been scarred by the experience

It turns out Zoorotica landed a lot more on the life-affirming side of things than on the petrifying horror side.  It started with a brief introduction and talk about what the Binder Park Zoo does.  They are part of an international breeding program that attempts to help repopulate endangered species with an animal exchange.  In short, they send animals around to other zoos in search of a proper breeding partner.  More on that later.  First, I would like to share some of the timeless wisdom of the Binder Park Zookeeper with you all:

On breeding pairs: "We put them together in potential breeding situations or keep them apart depending on what we want... like you would with teenagers."

On being surprised by a giraffe pregnancy: "You don't just walk up to a giraffe and say: 'can I palpate you?'."

 

Speaking of giraffes, meet our mascot, Carlos.

After the initial presentation, we were escorted to both public and private parts of the zoo to get a behind the scenes tour.  Zoorotica, it turns out, is about breeding... but its darn sure not a live demonstration (my worst fear).  Instead, we got to talk to the zookeepers about their roles tending to the animals, how the breeding exchange worked and what they do to encourage breeding among their pairs.  Not every zoo hosts breeding pairs and the zoos that do need special enclosures (in some cases) to separate out the breeding pairs from the other animals living there.

We were also treated to a peacock's mating display.  Well, we were treated to an unsuccessful mating display by a peacock.  His feathers were absolutely beautiful to our untrained, non-lady-peacock eyes.  Apparently to the nearby lady peacocks though, he was not a great catch.

 

Impressive?

Not really.

After that we got a tour of the wallaby and lemur area.  They are warm weather creatures, but they can survive in cold temperatures so the zoo mixes warm and cold areas for them during the winter.  They can stay inside to be warm, but go outside to get fresh air.  Apparently lemurs are really stupid.  Like, deeply, painfully stupid.  Their keeper told us about the time they put food for the lemurs in an old pizza box and put the box in their cage.  The wind blew through and closed the box, at which point the lemurs all looked to her for food.  Take that in for a second.  They saw the food in the box.  They saw the box get set down.  The box closed... they forgot there was food in it.  Epic.

After the lemurs we saw some of the smaller animal groups that can stay outside all winter.  Prairie dogs had an outdoor habitat still in tact, for example.  The zoo has no idea how many prairie dogs they have because, as our tour guide explained, they breed in underground tunnels they create.  As we walked past, she told us that we were likely seeing prairie dog breeding going on at that very moment underground.  It was like being in a motel parking lot at dusk.  You know what's going on... but its best not to think about it.

The best thing ever in the whole wide world and the history of time was what came next.  Seriously.  I don't think I will experience anything this awesome and fantastic again until the birth of my first child.  And really even that may be a let down after.... 

 

BABY GIRAFFES!!!

I got to pet them and feed them and love them and they were amazing and I was happy and they were tall and pretty and graceful and silly and happy and awesome and I want to be a giraffe and have giraffe babies of my own.  Wow.  I... should've stopped about thirty seconds sooner on that.  I regret nothing.  The point is... giraffes are the best thing in the history of time up close.  They love crackers and they are insanely friendly.  They play with each other and the baby... the two month old baby... was eight feet tall.

 

 Compared to this guy, the babies are short like Justin.

Who may or may not kill me for making that joke.

Again.  I regret nothing.

Angry zebra disapproves of my joke.

For the most part, though we talked a lot about animal breeding and the importance of the breeding exchange, the program was more about seeing the zoo behind the scenes and seeing the animals up close.  The main discussion of actual breeding mainly seemed to focus on the fact that February (early spring-ish) is their breeding season.  Other than that, we were just touring a zoo.  It was amazing and lovely.

The one exception to this was at the end.  There was a reception with "hor d'oeuvres" and an informational set of videos.  See, earlier that year there were a few... unexpected... giraffe pregnancies.  They thought they had a male giraffe who couldn't breed and were intending to send him off to a non-breeding exchange zoo for display.  They were keeping him in the same enclosure with the lady giraffes until the transfer and before it went through he managed to get not one, not two, not three, but FOUR giraffes pregnant.  There were four lady giraffes and four giraffe pregnancies.  That's right... the guy they were going to give away for not being able to breed managed to get every female giraffe at the zoo pregnant.

 

I see that "come hither" stare...

So, while they fed us delightful treats for Valentine's Day, they showed us video of the baby giraffes being born.  I'd like to say it wasn't creepy at all to be eating chocolate covered strawberries and drinking sparkling cider at a closed-for-the-season zoo with a bunch of couples celebrating their love and watching a video of a baby giraffe being born... but we all know it was.  It was very creepy.  

 

Pictured: Not hor d'oeuvres.

I kid around a lot, but in truth it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.  Getting to see the balance of nature up close and see what people are doing to help keep endangered animals alive was really inspiring.  Not to mention that the giraffes, up close and personal, were one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.  It was truly touching and life-affirming.  The verdict?  Plenty of zoo-, just the right amount of -rotica.