Skippy your friend ever true

[austin_dern]

Though I'd been planning to before the tragedy, I went to the Singapore Zoo. As it happens I saw an animal saved from escape. At the walk-in enclosure where one could pet several models of kangaroos if they didn't all lay in the sand well away from the sidewalk to which humans are confined. For a change, though, one of the small kangaroos -- I think a wallaby, but I can't shake the suspicion they're just ``large kangaroos'' and ``small kangaroos'' and the division into species is just the kangaroo community messing with tourists -- got not only onto the sidewalk, but into the double-gated enclosure that's meant to keep kangaroos from escaping.

This was premeditated: she was staring at the crack in the gate, waiting for a careless visitor to let her out into the world. Finally an Australian (do Australians find it boring to see kangaroos in zoos?) lead her, by hand motions and gentle nudging with his foot, back inside the enclosure. She stayed by the gate, hopping back and forth and watching for a chance.

As the only kangaroo who could be petted she drew a lot of attention, and starred in many pictures. Some twit got a piece of bread (who takes bread to the zoo?) and fed her one fragment at a time. This got him, admittedly, better pictures, but apparently he never considered whether the kangaroo was on the Atkins diet. He and his son pet the kangaroo while she was eating; I was always taught not to bother animals, at all if possible, but certainly not while eating. I did scritch her, after she was long done eating and after she had the chance to smell my hand and get either comfortable or bored with me.

Those who heard of the green polar bears a few months back, well, one's completely cured of the algae causing green fur. The other is nearly entirely cured; there's a few greenish patches, but if you didn't know what they were you'd think they were just grass stains. I also got some lovely pictures of the sea lion show (with cameo from Helena the otter), the otters, the raccoons, and not much else; a heavy thunderstorm sliced a big chunk of time out of my visit. But I also picked up some nice rcoony and porsupah plush toys.

Also, since blither dislikes her toaster, I cleaned my apartment. More on that anon.

Trivia: Singapore's first air strip was the horse racetrack at what is now Farrer Park. Source: Street Names of Singapore, Peter K G Dunlop.

Currently Reading: Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain.

Comments

[blither.livejournal.com]

*beams* Apartment cleaning.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Don't beam too brightly. I still haven't got my to-do list together yet.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I don't get bored watching squirrels at the zoo. Although they're not in cages, so they're a little more active than most zoo animals.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

They've got a bunch of squirrels in the Zoo, actually, in an enclosure near the raccoons. The squirrels are in a semi-building dedicated to Small Mammals, and the construction is such that there's a good swath of trees the squirrels can leap to and be hidden. Naturally they jump there any time someone does something hinting they're going to take a picture. But they have a mix of North American squirrels, Prevost's, flying, giant squirrels ... and a couple freelance squirrels just started hanging around the vicinity of the Zoo, I guess for the good environment.

[butterfluff.livejournal.com]

Some families might bring a picnic lunch to the zoo, and save aside some bread to feed the animals.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Don't most people carry a few slices of bread in reserve, just in case?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

If you both say so, all right, but I plainly don't think at all like people who do take snacks to the zoo. Granted I don't have a family to travel with, so I don't have to fuss over finding things everyone's willing to eat, or worry about affording it. I think I went 15 years without buying popcorn at the movies, either, though that's without going to the movies very often either.

Still, the kangaroo might well have been on Atkins. They shouldn't be tossing bread at her.

Wallabies.

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

You are correct about kangaroos. Wallabies are merely small kangaroos... they're all the same family of critter, and wallabies don't differ from larger kangaroos any more than any of the varied species differ from each other. It's an arbitrary naming convention, even more so than between two groups that aren't so clearly named -- big cats and small cats.

Re: Wallabies.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's reassuring to hear. Even with the signs in front of me I can't confidently say whether an animal is a kangaroo, wallaroo, or wallaby anyway. It's easier when they include ringed tails or eyemasks or distinctive things like that.