We all felt pretty bad this morning and so it was a rather forced waking at about 9.30am, trying to view the potential of the day through bleary, sickly eyes. After a while we decided we would head to Copenhagen Zoo. We took the car because everyone was feeling so lethargic. After several wrong turns and a considerable lack of parking space we arrived half an hour later than we would have been had we taken the metro! To make things worse, we were faced with a near 1km walk, up a hill!!!! Hmmm not entirely as planned. To cap it all when we got to the entrance I realised I had left my wallet in the car, I said something like, “Never mind, despite feeling rather unwell, the extra walk will do me good!”
The Zoo was packed and it was very hot but once inside it seemed there was plenty of space to wander round to view the exhibits. My wife has this theory that you should always go the opposite way round to the obvious route to avoid the crowds, there may be something in that! Our first enclosure was the world of primates, now if there is anything that will get you laughing, however inappropriately, it will be the behaviour of monkeys. The gibbons were especially entertaining as were the baboons and there were many shouts of, “Look at his bum,” (from the children of course). Seriously though I remember the same comments from my little brother when we were kids at Drayton Manor Zoo, near Tamworth .
After this we saw the polar bears but this was quite a sad sight. These two great majestic animals, which looked in good condition, trod the same weary path repeatedly for as long as we watched them. Their enclosure seemed too small and unstimulating . This puzzled us as the rest of the zoo was well laid out with some realistic habitats and stimulating challenges for the other animals. They all looked comfortable in their environments and visitors were able to take time to observe them closely. Eventually, we worked it out. We had noticed a lot of construction work around the Zoo and that they were advertising their newest development to be opened in 2012, namely “The Arctic Ring”. It was a huge area. These magnificent beasts, the symbol of global warming, were going to given a brand new home, one more fitting for these beautiful creatures.
I am a big fan of Zoo’z and most have come a long way to improve the quality of life of their animals and the experience of the visitors. Conservation is now a huge feature in Zoo’s and the captive breeding programmes employ highly motivated and skilled individuals intent on preserving and increasing the diversity of species. Hence I was pleased to find this link to the Polar Bear plans at Copenhagen Zoo.
Nobody had much of an appetite so after the Zoo closed at 5pm it was back home to the hotel.
I had some e-mail communications to do and plan my next scheduled visit down south to Jupiter Eel Farm, Stege.
Did you see any mermaids in Copenhagen??
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