Lincoln's Children Zoo

Walking into the Lincoln Children’s Zoo brought back memories of when I was a child. Growing up in Norfolk I did not have a zoo to go to, therefore I only went on special occasions. As I walked up to the counter to pay my way, a rush of excitement flowed through my body and all those memories came streaming back into my mind. As I walked past the paying booth, I noticed the gift shop. It reminded me of the first time I went a zoo’s gift shop and wanted my mom to buy everything that was in it. I was in love with the stuffed sharks after walking through the fish aquarium at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.
The first thing that caught my attention was the distinct smell of the animals before I even entered the zoo. The stench could be smelled from a few yards from the gate. Then, I noticed a cute little sign that had a penguin on it and said, “No puffing allowed,” it was very cute.
No matter how old you are, the zoo can bring back the kid that is buried deep inside of anyone. Zoos have always been a place where families went and going to the Lincoln Children’s Zoo was no different.
Upon entering the zoo, there were families with young children everywhere you turned stampeding about. The farther you went in, the more children you saw. You could hear the excitement in their voices as they saw the different animals. Hearing them talk to their parents with such enthusiasm made me relive the many times especially the first time I went to the zoo with my family.
Besides seeing the children in the zoo another sight that caught my eye was the bulletin board announcing seal shows everyday eleven o’clock and three o’clock, and a sign announcing to kids that they could party with the animals for their birthdays. As I walked down this pathway that was lined with trees, the first animals that I encountered were the reindeer that were in a fenced in pen. Both of the reindeer that they had were female. Their coats were a dark brown and white, and although they were female they had antlers, which had begun to shed a thin layer of hair that had been protecting them. As I walked closer to the fence, the group of girls that I was with and I was greeted by one of the reindeer while the other one stayed clear of the visitors in the back of the pen. At first we thought she was very cute and that it was trying to get our attention as she was sitting down, so we thought, but in actuality she came over by us and started to urinate right by the fence. We immediately walked away after that.
As I began to walk away from the enclosure one of the girls said there was a white peacock. I turned and looked and it was one of the most beautiful animals that I had ever seen in person. As we walked closer to it I heard it start make a high pitch screech, it sounded like any bird that you would hear. Everything on him was white, everything from what looked like a crown of feathers to his white beak and feet. He stood alone in a circular area that housed a bench and a fake cow that was put in for kids to see if they were able to milk it.
Besides the peacock and the reindeer, there were other exotic animals that I saw. Before entering a building filled with other animals, there were red pandas, which were red with hints of black and white all over their bodies. Seeing them in this or any other zoo is a rare experience because there are only 200 of them in captivity worldwide. As I entered the building where the majority of the animals were housed the first creatures that were visible to me were the fruit bats from Africa, which hung effortlessly from the ceiling.
Immediately following the bat displays were these adorable, hyper squirrel monkeys that had just came from a zoo in California. Their names were Miles, Kirk, and Worf. Also, with them was an Acouchi, which looks like an over grown rat that looked scared and miserable, because the monkeys were never still. The whole time we were watching them, the acouchi cowered in the back like a scared child. This was kind of peculiar to me because I had never been to a zoo where they had different species of animals housed together.
After watching the squirrel monkeys, the other animals were not that interesting to me. They seemed to be very depressed, there was a marmoset named Connor, which had had a back injury and had to have one of his back legs amputated. There was a two-toed sloth, which resembled Cousin It from the Addam’s Family, which sat on a branch, a dwarf crocodile, dumeril's monitor, golden lion tamarins that had miniature manes that resembled a lion’s mane, a red tailed boa and a blood python that were coiled together, and black and white lemurs. A mice farm was hidden in a corner, which housed baby mice that were very ugly creatures to see. They were hairless, had their eyes closed, and almost every bone in there body was visible as they aimlessly wandered around the tunnels of their house, which was basically a hamster’s cage, just bigger.
There were also meerkats, little creatures that look like prairie dogs, which seem to be mean animals. One of them hissed at me as I passed by the cage, and he was fighting with the other meerkat that was housed with him.
I loved seeing the eagle's nest which was huge, and it was surprising that the zoo would actually allow people to walk in it. I never would have thought that a bird’s nest would be that big. If an eagle’s nest is that big, I cannot imagine how big an ostrich’s nest is! Walking into the eagle’s enclosure has to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Being that close to such powerful animals that were so close to extinction was something that I will always remember. They were so calm; nothing seemed to faze them as they lurched in their box area. I also was excited to see the seals, but it was a big disappointment because one was very lazy and looked like it was dead, and the other one swam out from its private area and then went back.
But, my favorite part of the whole experience was the petting zoo. It was strange because when I was younger I hated the petting zoo, I was always afraid to feed them. I would start to cry if my mom would try and make me. Seeing those kids fearlessly running to the different animals pens and feeding and petting the animals made me wonder why I was so afraid of these animals as a child. There were goats and llamas that you were able to feed. The animals automatically associated people with food. As soon as you would walk up to their pen, they would put their noses up to the fence or hold their heads above the fence for you to feed them. You had to put 50 cents into a candy machine that was filled with these pellets and when you turned it, a handful of feed came pouring out into your hand. Feeling their wet noses and tongues against my hand at first was not the best feeling, but then I got over it and just had fun.
Most of our time was spent there playing with the animals. I seemed to be more excited than the little kids that were there. As I sat there feeding them, I noticed that this was one of the most popular places in the zoo with families. Children were running around with wide eyes and smiling from ear to ear simply because they were allowed to interact with the animals, they didn’t have to watch them from afar.