America's First Zoo

The weather since we have been in Pennsylvania has, in general, been something less than a sunny and warm springtime. Mostly the days have been cloudy tending to overcast and rather chilly. Today the sun came out (for a few hours), the day warmed up to over 70 degrees and we headed out to the Philadelphia Zoo with Monte's brother Gary and his wife Linda. Linda said she had been wanting to go to the zoo for some time and we always enjoy zoos.

                                     Looks cloudy and icky but the sun came out and it was
                                                                  perfect weather wise.

                                                                      Linda and Gary Gill

The Philadelphia Zoo is 42 acres and home to more than 1,300 animals, many of them rare and endangered. The Zoo is an American first. The charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was approved on March 21,1859. However, due to a minor inconvenience called the Civil War, it was another 15 years before the Zoo was ready to open. The Zoo opened its gates on July 1, 1874. In its first year of operation the Zoo had 813 animals and received over 228,000 visitors. Today over 1.1 million visitors come each year to see the more than 1,300 animals.

Flamingos

Gorilla Scat

Keep reading and you will get to a link for a video

of one of the gorillas

Lioness

Peacock.  The Peahen was just out of this picture and we

almost got to see PeaLove but she ran away from him.

                                                                A very rare bird!!

Click this link to see:

Silverback Gorilla Waking Upright

I just happened to have the camera on video mode when this

guy stood up and started to run.

Zoos get a bad rap at times and many animal rights groups are very anti-zoo. However, without zoos there are many many species of animals that would have become extinct – and for we citizens of the U.S.A. - that list starts with the largest land animal in North America – that icon of the American West, the American Bison. Without a breeding program at the Bronx Zoo in the early 1900's there would be no buffalo in the wild to gawk at and ooh and aah over when you visit Yellowstone NP or Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. The black footed ferret, the trumpeter swan and the California Condor are other examples of animals that have been brought back from the brink of extinction with the help of zoos.

The timing for our visit was great as just after we left the Zoo the clouds rolled in, the rain started and the temperature plummeted. We totally enjoyed our day at the Zoo.