Giraffes
It's kind of crazy to believe that just a year ago I was standing face to face---or rather, face to shoulder---with a giraffe. Before leaving Cork, Ireland, I took the train 30 minutes down to the southern coast to visit Fota Wildlife Park.
Wildlife parks have a different ambience about them when compared to zoos. Instead of tall chain-link fences and vast distances between the observers and the animals, there's virtually no separation. For better or worse, I could (hypothetically) reach my hand over the little wooden fence and touch them. I didn't touch any of the animals, but I certainly prefer seeing them up close.
Bison (left) and Zebras (right)
Paths with the occasional mini safari bus circled wide enclosures where bison grazed and zebras hung out in their cliches. The zebras, in particular, wanted nothing to do with the guests, but the giraffes, who shared the same enclosure loved to loom over us. They were the most friendly of all the creatures I visited at Fota. Even the baby ones took turns coming over to say hello.
Lion-tailed Macaque (left) and Colombian Black Spider Monkeys (right)
In the middle of the park is Monkey Island. The small piece of land was separated from the rest of the park by a little stream and housed all kinds of tall, wooden posts for the monkeys to swing around on. Monkeys are my favorite part of a zoo or wildlife park for no other reason than I think they are adorable. They're also very active critters, using their long arms to propel themselves from branch to branch. Though the monkeys at Fota were content to leisurely walk across the ground, and in some cases, groom their friends.
Rhinoceros (left) and Kangaroo (right)
The rhino was hard to see. At first, I thought I was staring into an empty enclosure, then one of the rocks began to move. He never wandered too close. In fact, most of the animals didn't. The kangaroo napped in the shade, while the capybara lounged in the sun. On a semi-related note, capybara's are the cutest rodents I have ever seen.
Further down the path were the cheetahs. There were three that I could count, but they were hard to capture in a good photograph. These regal and majestic kitties were one of the few animals truly enclosed in a cage, so there was no seeing them run, but one of them came out from hiding in the corner bushes to watch us watching them.
Capybara (left) and Cheetah (right)
Admittedly, the ostrich intimidated me more than the cheetah. It kept following me. Watching me. With such a tiny fence, I was a little concerned it might hop over and come after me, but it didn't. Eventually, it found some poor little boy to intimidate, and I was free to find sweeter birds, like the penguins, hanging out in the shade of a large rock.
As I ate cheesy french fries from the zoo's resident snack shack, I learned about Fota's dedication to conservation. Not only do they have lots of cool animals to "ooh and ahh" over, but they are actively working to restore the animal populations that humans have consequently threatened with our own population increase. Over 200 cubs have been born in Fota since 1984, and many of those animals have been reintroduced and/or released to their natural habitats. Fota provided me with plenty of pictures and a sense of relief. It's important that animals are taken care of and protected. After all, animals deserve to live on this planet as much as people do, maybe even more.
Ostrich (left) and Humboldt Penguins (right)
