Gladys Porter Zoo

Today many of us from the Park went to Brownsville to visit the Gladys Porter Zoo. We carpooled and went down in four vehicles. Anna and I caught a ride with George. It was great fun.

 

This alligator put up quite a fight but I came out on top. Okay, so he was a bit stiff.



Wrestling an Alligator

I am not a big fan of Zoo's but I must say this one is definitely one of the better one's I have visited. There was a very wide variety of animals and birds and the surroundings were very nice.

 

There were streams running throughout the zoo, and lots of trees.

 

 

There were also a few waterfalls

and ponds. Most of the ponds had a very wide variety of ducks, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The big animal sites were wide open.

 

 

 

 

 

 The show stealer was a baby gorilla. She was just a week old and cute as a button. Her mother had refused to have anything to do with her when she was born so the zoo staff are looking after her until she is old enough to join a gorilla family.

 

 



Another enclosure had a gorilla family and the youngest one was particularly adorable.

 

 

It was fun watching her crazy antics. It was like watching a 2 year old at play. When she finally wore herself out she climbed on mom's back for a ride.

 

One of the most unusual sights was this Double Waffled Cassowary.

This bird has extremely sharp dagger-like claws on the inner toe of each foot and has been know to kill New Guinea natives by kicking and slashing them. On the top of its head is a horn like protrusion which is supposed to help them travel through thick forest.

 There was a lot of information given at each site. I thought it interesting that the  giant tortoises( weighing up to 600 lbs),  now exist in only two places: the Galapagos Islands and  Seychelles and adjacent islands in the Indian Ocean. As late as the 1800's they were taken from the Galapagos islands- sometimes from 200 to 700 at a time- by those on ships passing through the area. They were  used as a source of  fresh meat. This greatly decreased their numbers.

 While touring the zoo we came across a building that was set up with tourist information. I met a very nice  fellow dressed as a Mexican Soldier during the time of the war between the U.S. and Mexico. We had  an interesting discussion about the different battles involving Mexico  and  he demonstrated how the rifle he was holding was loaded with gun powder and fired. It is quite a process.

My picture of the day was taken when we were nearly finished our tour of the zoo.

 How would you like to get a drink of water up a neck that long?

We stopped at San Benito on the way home and had a very good dinner at the same Mexican restaurant we had eaten at when we visited the Freddie Fender Museum.

It was a wonderful sunny day with a temperature of 31C.  We definitely got our exercise and it sure was fun.

Keep warm.