Santa Barbara Zoo - Part 2

Have I mentioned we love the Santa Barbara Zoo? Ya, I know I have!  ;-)

We stopped there again on our way back through and re-visited some of the animals we didn't get great photos of, didn't see at all, or wanted to see again. 

Enjoy! 

Monkey business!
(Not great photos but didn't see these guys at all the first time.)

Better photo of one of the condors than last time.

Meerkat

Even a few plant photos this time!

White-faced Saki

Juvenile black-crowned night heron

Snow leopard

Because of the wire fencing and the difficulty focusing the camera over a larger area, I could get a photo of the whole snow leopard. It's hard to capture how impressively long its tail is!

These decorations, throughout the zoo, were starting to be set up when we were there the first time on this trip and were now complete and ready for the "zoo lights" tour and fundraiser starting in a couple of weeks. I bet they look great all lit up at night.

Santa Barbara Zoo

The Santa Barbara Zoo is one our most favourite zoos and we stop here at least once every time we're in the area. It's small but very well laid out and has a few animals that you don't often see elsewhere. We always buy a membership which allows us to enter an hour before the general public. It's so nice to view the animals without dodging around too many other people. However, we did spend three hours there so got a bit of both!

As you can see from most of these photos, I really like getting "facial" views of the animals rather than the whole animal. I think it's much more interesting sometimes. 

It was hard to get any decent photos of these very quick moving otters! Although by the time we left the zoo, they'd tired themselves out and were sleeping all huddled together in a corner. 

The penguins were also difficult to photo due to rapid movements! 

I love how the zoo tags all the penguins with their name. There used to be a penguin named "Lucky" who had a damaged foot. The shoe company Teva made a sandal for him so he could walk better. Sadly, it seems like Lucky is no longer around.

This poison dart frog was plastered to the glass of his habitat which I thought looked humorous. 

The wallabies are a new addition to the zoo and you could walk through the area they were in so it was much nicer and easier to take photos. They are in the area that the elephants used to be in as both elephants have died of old age.

Also new to the zoo since we'd last been there are two very cute foxes from the Channel Islands. They were rescued as babies after their mother had been killed.

It doesn't seem like very many zoos have condors but the Santa Barbara Zoo is well known for them. 

Meerkats . . . so funny looking! They make me laugh every time!

Guess who! 

So tired! :-)

Pretty colors!

Santa Barbara Zoo

On Monday, we took a rest day from paragliding and went to the Santa Barbara Zoo, which is regularly ranked as one of the best small zoos in North America. Andrew posted his fabulous photos and provided some tips about taking photos at the zoo. 

In addition to seeing all the animals, one of the things I love about zoos and aquariums is their focus on education about the the health and safety of all living creatures and sustainability of our environment.

Here's just a few things the zoo is doing, along with similar suggestions about what we all can do. 

Each of the displays have a sign with information about the animals as well as information on what you can do to help protect those animals in their natural environments. Here are just a few examples. 

"Jeans for Giraffes" is an interesting initiative where you can donate your old denim jeans. The denim is recycled (turned into insulation) and the money received goes to support giraffe research and protection in Africa.