Wednesday, September 24

Creative Day 24



We went to the zoo today. It is a funny place. The kids seem to enjoy it and we focussed a lot on the patterns that we could see- the zebra stripes, the tiger stripes, the spots on the giraffe - even the rings in the wooden logs around the place. The last place we stopped was the gorillas.
They were sitting in their area - which is all set up to look and 'feel' natural. The zoo is currently undergoing upgrades to increase the natural-ness of the animals habitat and the elephant and orangatang exhibits are great, but back to the gorillas.
We first stopped at the top and could just see one but they were fairly far away, so we wandered around a little further to a lower section that was glass, on their ground level. There was a gorilla there - looking very pensive. There were two other people in this area so it was quiet and we were simply observing. He was looking at us and we were looking at him, and we were all still. Then he started to move - pose in fact, reclining on one elbow, which got a great reaction from us, looking, pointing, taking photos. This spurred him on more, with him sticking his tongue out- the crowd started to grow as did the noise of appreciation. Then another gorilla came racing down and banging on the windows - to gain our attention or surprise us, not sure but both were true. Then this gorilla proceeded to steal the show. This is my issue. On one hand it is great to have a place where you can go and learn, see the animals etc etc, but on the other hand, there is no chance to see them as they would be in the wild- basically because it is not the wild and those animals couldn't go to the wild. Alexander and I talked about it on the way to the beach - imagine if your loungeroom windows were a viewing deck for other people, or even gorillas. Would you act differently for them?

No comments:

Post a Comment