Monday, July 26, 2010

Invasion of the Title snatchers!


Yesterday we went to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido. A companion to the San Diego Zoo, it's not only dedicated to conserving animals, but also the native California habitat. A large portion of the 1800 acres containing the park are undeveloped native hills and fauna.
I think that out of all the zoos I've ever been to, this was my favorite (tied with an Australian zoo). The animals have tons of space to live in, with real plants and few fences. The animals could behave more naturally and live more like their wild counterparts.
We started out our exploration of the park by taking the conservation tour. We were actually the only two people taking it that day, so we had a very good tour. The first thing we got to do was visit the laboratories and research building. We saw a room dedicated to the conservation of the yellow legged frog, a native of California. There were tanks of tadpoles and others of adult frogs.
Our guide told us the three Rs of conservation: research, reproduction, and release. She told us about the steps the park is taking to preserve endangered species. The wild animal park has a very successful breeding program for everything from California condors to endangered iguanas. We learned that zoos exchange animals periodically to keep the gene pool clear.
One thing that really interested me in the research building was the "frozen zoo." They had tissue samples and reproductive material of endangered animals. It's a sort of backup program for animals: if they go extinct, someone can clone from the genetic samples. This made me think really hard. I'm not sure of my opinions on the ethics of it. It's good to try to keep critically endangered species alive, but is cloning any better than genetic engineering? Should we be trying to play all powerful like this, or let it go? It's our fault that the animals are going extinct, so is it ok if we save them or not? See? It's confusing!
Besides the research laboratory, we drove out into the conserved open space. CRAZY BIRD AUNTS DON'T READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH OR YOU WILL GO MORE CRAZY. Deep in the depths of the protected land is the bird facility. It contains endangered birds from all over the world that they have for breeding. They introduce some of the chicks back into the wild, so we couldn't get very near. Because the birds are supposed to have minimal contact with humans we watched from afar. It made my crazy bird aunt extremely sad that we couldn't see them closer.
After that we were taken to the home of some extra warthogs that aren't on exhibit at the moment. They are odd looking animals.
Then we got to feed the przewalski's wild horses. They're the only horses on earth that are still considered wild. Amazing. They don't completely look like domestic horses either. Wild horses have upright manes, and these were smaller and stockier than domestic ones. These guys also bit, so we threw carrots in instead of feeding them outright.
Next we went to an enormous enclosure containing four types of endangered African ungulates. One kind was called the slender horned gazelle, and another I think was called an addre, but I can't remember the other names. Some, though, had spiraled horns, and another large brown kind was in something called an alert circle. Each faces a different direction so the animals can see danger coming from anywhere. We got to feed all of them.
We also saw a Northern white rhino. There are only 7 left in the entire world, and the wild animal park has two of them. Sadly, both are beyond breeding age, so neither can help bring the species away from the brink of extinction. It's a grim picture, looking at the future of that species. It's very sad.
But that's where our tour left us, and we started wandering the park. We didn't get lost this time because the maps weren't confusing, so we looked all around. There are so many animals there with so much space, it's amazing! There were tons of bird and aviaries, we saw tiny baby elephants and so many animals. I can't list them all. Or even remember them all. But I did decide that I'd love love love to work there.

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(That's how you say hippopotamus in blehe. But we didn't see any of those.)

6 comments:

  1. Interesting question, Mara! how do you fight against genetic modification/enhancement of our seed and food supply while advocating the reintroduction of an extinct species through artificial propogation. Yet, how could we allow a species to disappear if we have the technology to maintain it, especially since we drove it to extinction? You are taking your first steps into the compexities of the conflicts between progress and maintaining the environment.

    It sounds like an amazing place. I'd love to go there with you!

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  2. That was a very scientific sounding post. I commend you. Yes! Someday we should go there. And the question baffles. I'm probably going to think about it for the rest of my life! It's so difficult to answer!!!!

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  3. Jejfwtebcjhjre urhotdht fuiofsgku! <3 you!!!!

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  4. Compexities? You made a typo an my account, mother? How dare you.
    That frog in the picture may be the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

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