Calen's Blog about the Zoo

This past Friday I got to go with my church to the Knoxville Zoo for "Bedtime with the Beasts." We got to the go to the zoo, take a nighttime tour after the zoo closed, and got to the spend the night in a little building in the middle of the zoo. It was a wonderful trip! I just love animals, and on our tour I learned some interesting things.

Since most animals in the zoo are not nocturnal (which means active at night), they were asleep. Who would want to to see animals sleeping?! We did get to see a couple of the noctural animals at night. The next day we went a skunk, bat, and raccoon exhibit. These animals are nocturnal and in the day they would sleep. Who would want to see that, right? That wouldn't be fun for people who come during the day. So they flip flopped the time of day in this exhibit. To do this, they have this light on a timer. The lights were off in the day so it was dark, and the animals would think it was night and come out so we could see. Then at night, the lights would come on the animals would sleep.

We learned that people actually went in to feed some of the animals. Other animals, like the lions and tigers, they had to feed from outside. But, everyone has to go into the cages to clean them. These people got special shots that last for a year. They do this so if a raccoon and skunk has rabies and they get bit or scratched the people wouldn't get sick. That's a really good idea!

They also have a beaver exhibit at the zoo. If you look really closely their teeth look like candy corn because they orange at the top and white at the bottom. I didn't come up with that, another boy did, but I thought it was pretty cool.

There was this bird whose wings get longer than our arms! Like 15 to 20 feet long!! I forget the name of the bird, but it would eat dead animals (that means it is a scavenger). It will stick it's head in the animal to eat the meat inside of it. That is gross. Did you know that it doesn't have any teeth, so it uses its sharp beak to pull off the meat and swallows it whole.

Another neat bird that I saw was the screech owl. This poor owl had lost one of its eye. There is something bad about a owl, they don't pay any attention to a car's lights. Then they get hit by the car and can die!

Did you know they also have some ferrets at the zoo? Ferrets are not related to rats even though they look like one! They can shape their bodies like a ball very easily. They also do not like be kept in cages. Ferrets are very friendly, but will get scared around loud noises.

Two more interesting exhibits that I enjoyed were the red pandas and the gorillas. Red pandas look a lot like a fox. Even though they are red, they are camouflouged in the wild. This is because the moss that grows there is the same color as their fur. I learned that if you stare at gorillas they will think you are challenging them. Also, only baby gorillas get along with each other, but that is only at first. The bigger gorillas will fight with each other.