"Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings."
~Evan Esar
Last week's edition was taken at five inches and below. This week's edition was taken from a minimum of 35 feet away at the Minnesota Zoological Park.
It's been a good week here in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, United States, Northern Hemisphere, Earth. I graduated with my MFA and the familia came up to celebrate with me. One of the places we went was the Minnesota Zoo. While I have visited zoos that make me uncomfortable about the enclosures and space given to their charges, the Minnesota zoo takes advantage of its large footprint to devote acres of space to the winter hardy outside animals. It has a working farm and a huge indoor rainforest for those critters that aren't really up to a Minnesota winter! Sign me up, eh?
At every viewing platform are charts showing where the animals live in the wild, what they eat, the dangers they face, and the habitat destruction and hunting that threatens their continued survival.
Things are bad right now. Global warming is a steadily increasing problem and habitat loss looms worldwide. Families with small children point to the tigers and tell their children to look at the big kitties! Can they growl? Are they sleepy? Do they see you? I look at the tigers and feel for them. In a perfect world, we would not need to go to special places in order to observe our fellow inhabitants- But! I think it's important to instill a sense of wonder in the young and young minded about the many families that share our small blue planet. There but for the lack of thumbs go us.
We stopped the ozone hole. We stopped DDT and the eagles are coming back. We can beat global warming and habitat loss too, but it will be hard work. It's good to be reminded of our fellow passengers. They're counting on us and we can't let them down.
Remember: These are my photos, but it's not the camera, or the photographer, but the world that is beautiful. Get out there and record what you see, touch, and know to be worthwhile!
Please share your photos of our beautiful world in the comments.
Good places to upload your photos for free:
Flickr! This is what I use.
Photobucket! Also a good site.