A Zoo Visitor's Thoughts

I love zoos!   *   What is a zoo?   *   Zoos are endangered!   *   Keep the elephants!   *   Zoos are for adults, too!   *   Comparing Elephant Webcams and Elephants   *   I love the Elmwood Park Zoo!   *   How do you pronounce oh-KAH-pee?   *   I love the National Zoo! (for 11 great reasons!)   *   There is a Moral to This (True) Story!   *   A Trend Turnaround   *   I love the Elmwood Park Zoo and the National Zoo's websites!   *   Winds of Change are in the Air!   *   Research Results   *   Don't Do It!

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I love the Elmwood Park Zoo!

The Elmwood Park Zoo is one of the most scenic, peaceful zoos on earth. Even special events don't seem to interfere with its overall tranquility. When you enter the zoo, you can literally feel your muscles relax as the calming atmosphere of a true zoological park surrounds you. (Be careful if you have been tense for a long time prior to entering the zoo. When your body suddenly relaxes, you might wobble.)

The Zoo is small (only 16 square acres), but it feels like wide open natural spaces in a park-like setting. As you walk, you see plants, trees, and animals on both sides of the path. You hear all-natural animal sounds, and in many areas, you also hear the sound of water flowing in a nearby stream.

The exhibits are all designed so the animals have plenty of space, but can't be too far away from the visitors' view. Jaguars, coatimundis, tamarins, fishers, porcupines, wolves, foxes, cougars, elk, buffalo, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, bats, burrowing owls, egrets, cranes, and peregrine falcons share the Zoo territory with alligators, snakes, turtles, and piranhas. And none of them try to eat each other.

Seniors can sit on benches and people-and-animal-watch. Families can sit at picnic benches and munch on snacks. College students can lie on the grass and study. Children can play in the scenically-designed playground, climb a play tree with a pretend eagle's nest on top, or crawl through a child-sized prairie dog tunnel.

I have been visiting the Elmwood Park Zoo for more than thirty years, and I have never heard, If you don't behave, we're going home! or It's almost time for the football game, or even My feet hurt, while at the zoo.

I have read that the average time zoo visitors at most zoos spend at each exhibit is 60 seconds, give or take a few seconds. And I've witnessed visitors in some other zoos passing exhibits so quickly they appeared as a blur to the naked eye. But at the Elmwood Park Zoo, visitors of all ages linger at the exhibits.

Visitors stop, lean on the wooden fences, or iron railings, and quietly watch the animals for several minutes at a time. Usually when they talk, they talk in hushed voices so they won't disturb the animals. They even wait when an animal isn't immediately visible, hoping it will come into view.

What causes this unusual visitor behavior? What happened to all that fast-walking, loud-on-a-cell-phone-talking, rapid-chewing-hardly-swallowing, no-way-to-get-my-attention-unless-you-bombard-my-senses, we-have-to-hurry-because-we-have-twenty-other-things-to-do-today behavior all those people were engaged in before they entered the zoo?

It's gone with the breeze.

Labels: Elmwood Park Zoo, zoo visitors

posted by Zoo Visitor | 1 comments

Post a Comment or contact me