The Bears

This morning Wren and I went to the zoo and saw the bears. It was kind of by accident that we ended up at the bears instead of the flamingos. Wren likes flamingos and we visit them every time but for once we were driving to the zoo so I parked at the North entrance which is close to the wallabies, northern trail.... and bears. It was early, and the enclosures were being cleaned and food put out so it was an exciting time.

Just as we arrived at the bear enclosure the keeper finished her inspection. Wren was watching the salmon in the bear pond which is about 5ft deep and up against a heavy glass window so you can see the salmon in the pond, just like in an aquarium. The bears lumbered out into the sunlight and came straight down to the pond where one settled on a large rock while the other waded into the water and had a swim and tried to catch fish.

People pulled out cell-phones and tiny cameras and clicked away. An old man in camouflage gear poked his huge telephoto lens at the window. He would have an image of a single tooth - the bear was so close that when it pressed its paws against the glass I could put my hand against it.

Wren said "All done bear. All done claws. GO. NOW"

I let him run over to play with the copper otters near the otter pond. The otters were still sleeping. I respect his concern about bears. When the keeper was in the cage looking around, my first thought was "cr*p... she doesn't know where the bears are, they have escaped!"

The strange thing is that I used to watch the bear cam when I was living in Australia and Josh lived here. It is just dark right now but at times you can see the bears in their bear day and it can be quite entertaining.

Now I am right here - or I was.

We also saw the emu having a shower, fed a budgie from a seed stick, watched the snow leopard walk around with its extraordinarily long tail, ate choc chip cookies and stared a komodo dragon in the eye.

It was a very entertaining visit and even though I had seen the bears in their enclosure, I was still ghosted by the thought that they had escaped and imagined meeting them on a path without that 2" of glass. How different that would be.