A Very Special Trip -- Behind the Scenes at the Zoo

We got an awesome opportunity to go behind the scenes at the St. Louis Zoo on Sunday. The father of one of my friends growing up has worked at the zoo for the last 32 years. He is the curator of all of the mammals at the zoo. He still lives in the same neighborhood as my parents, so they got to talking and he offered a trip to see some stuff at the zoo you never get to see.

So, we met him there at 10:30 Sunday morning, and it was cooooold! (relatively speaking) But, that didn't matter, it was such an awesome trip. We took a golf cart around the zoo grounds. Our first stop was the bears, Bert and Ernie. Steve (our guide) had them do some cool tricks for us. Abby did sorta freak out with the bears.



Mom (my mom, not Peggy) hit the bear with one of the apples. Nice shot mom!

Abby was a bit frightened of the bears:
The next stop was the two sun bears....no video here, but they did stand up for us.


Abby was having a great time riding on the golf cart (after we were done with the bears of course).
After that we stopped by the monkeys, but didn't get any behind the scenes stuff....except the fact that one of the orangutans keeps breaking the glass of its cage....$30,000 to $40,000 a piece for a new piece of glass! I think he said the orangutan has broken at least 5 pieces of glass.

Next stop was the coolest part. Steve was the director of big cat country for a while before his current position, so he knows the cats very well. It was cool to see him call out the names of all these bears, tigers, cheetahs, etc. As cool as the zoo is, it's not like you usually get to interact with the animals. On Sunday we did just that.

He took us into the holding area for the cats. This is where they keep the animals overnight when it's cold outside and when they clean out the cages. We got to be within a foot or so of a huuuuuge tiger! He petted the tiger, but obviously we weren't allowed to. There was a jaguar who was yelling out a mating call in the cage next door to the two tigers:



How cool is this picture?!?!

After that we got to go in a fenced in area between the tiger and leopard enclosures. It was amazingly awesome! There were tigers laying right there up against the fence! On the other side there was a leopard who apparently is not very tame. They've had this leopard for 15 years or so and they've never been able to train her very well. Steve put his back up to the fence, the cat prowled up and pounced:


The tigers were on the other side of the enclosure. They were absolutely beautiful to see up close. We were soooo close to them!


After the tigers, we headed to the cheetahs. They wouldn't come up to the fence though, so no good video or pictures.

Overall, it was an amazing and unforgettable trip!