One of San Diego's most famous attractions (apart from Sea World which is unethical) is the San Diego Zoo. The zoo is located in the middle of the huge Balboa park close to downtown San Diego and it too is massive. The entry is a little bit pricey so we had to plan ahead to make sure we could see everything before closing.
Highlights were:
Snow Leopard. These are super rare in the wild so it was pretty cool to see one. Their enclosures have elevated walkways that allow the leopards to walk above the crowds.
- Mountain Lions. I was hoping to see mountain lions at some point on this trip. We saw these towards the end of the day when the temperature was a bit lower and they seemed much more energetic than most animals.
- The Aerial Tram. This basically an open gondola that travels from one corner of the zoo to the other. From here you can look down (and it's a long way down) at the zoo and various animals. It's also a nice way to get back to the exit at the end of the day.
- The vegetation. This might sound dumb but the zoo is covered in plants and trees with many foreign varieties. Even though it was a hot day we spent most of the time in the shade.
- Bears. There were a number of different bears at the zoo including Sun Bears, Grizzlies, Sloth Bears, and Polar Bears. I had never seen a bear before (Auckland Zoo's old Polar Bear aside) so this was pretty cool. Hopefully I won't be running into too many in the wilderness.
We spent more than five hours wandering around and it was pretty tiring. There is just so much to see and to read that it really needs more than one day. I've only list a few of the best things here as there's too much to cover otherwise.
One thing I wasn't sure about were the Polar Bears. We were told that they're fed a low fat diet to prevent them from developing the insulation that keeps the warm in the Arctic. The bear we saw still looked really uncomfortable and was lying on the ground panting.
I took plenty of video that I'll put together as soon as I have some spare time. In the meantime photos are below.
Mountain Lion
Okapi
I had never seen such long tusks
Snow Leopard
Nothing can ever be cuter than a Red Panda
