Solato Wildlife Center Trip

Irish Woman and Girlie Bear are off to the opening rites of the Annual Kentucky Period of Madness, so it's just Boo and I today.

Rather than either hang around the house all day or go to the zoo, I took him away from Louisville and went to the Solato Wildlife Center. This is an educational center run by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, and it's almost tailor made for kids.  There is an indoor area with displays of small animals, fish, turtles, and static displays about wildlife conservation and an outdoor walk that has examples of Kentucky wildlife, such as a very well-fed black bear, a bald eagle, elk, buffalo, turkey, and deer.

As we got there, we noticed a lot of people in medieval garb, and lo and behold, someone was having a wedding with most of the wedding party dressed in renn-faire garb.  Boo was very excited to see "Robin Hood!".  Luckily, we were able to get through the wildlife walk without disturbing the wedding.

One note on taking a 4 year old to a wildlife center - Don't be disappointed when he's more interested in the prolific squirrels and chipmunks than he is in the large mammals and birds.

Lucky Ducks got to sleep in

Boo and the elk.

Totonka

Elk. Next time, I need a longer lens

Buffalo and baby buffalo

Hey baby, gobble, gobble

The smart gobbler stays up in the tree where it's safe

Taken from 10 feet away through a fence.  <br>I guess they're used to people

Also taken from 10 feet away. <br>These birds are so beautiful

You want the cute?

You can't handle the cute!

That is Qannik, a polar bear cub that was rescued after being separated from her mother and sibling in Alaska.  She will be joining our other polar bear at the new Glacier Run exhibit at the Louisville Zoo.

The zoo also announced that a new baby giraffe was born recently.  So we'll have a baby polar bear, young grizzly bears, and a baby giraffe in our zoo.

The cute, it burns!

Animal Jailbreaks

An alligator farm in Florida had a little excitement recently when 17 reptiles tunneled their way out.  Several have been recovered, but neighbors have been warned to be cautious due to the probably presence of gators on the loose.  Or at least more gators than normal.  It is Florida after all.

No word yet on how the gators got shovels, boards for shoring up the tunnel, or blankets to sew into uniforms.  A blind gator who was left behind refuses to talk except to say that his skills at forging travel documents is legendary.  Floridians are told to be on the lookout for a gator on a BMW motorcycle.

In other news, a cow in Pennsylvania on its way to being slaughtered made a break for it and had one hour of freedom before being corralled with police cars and lassoed using dog leashes.

Bossy apparently outran and outfoxed several humans during her break for freedom.  No word yet on whether or not the exercise was good for her texture or taste.  Thankfully, the local SWAT team was not called out for this incident. We know this because neither the cow, the cow's pets, nor innocent bystanders were shot.