Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

So totally on a whim, on Saturday I made the trek to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. To summarize our three hour visit in one word = Awesome… actually let’s make it two words = Freaking Awesome. The first thing I noticed was how stimulated the animals appeared. As someone who works in an Aquarium, I think any animal living under human care deserves only the best and enrichment has a lot to do with this. Enrichment, simply put means toy, and enrichment varies immensely. Enrichment fit for a dolphin is not going to cut it for a polar bear. Enrichment is intended to stimulate the animal’s mind, and whether it was the sea otters, the harbour seals, or the Asian elephants - they all had some interesting enrichment!

The huge variety of animals at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is truly impressive. There are sea otters, walruses, polar bears, reindeer, arctic fox, eastern red wolves, tigers, Asian elephants, sharks, big sharks, lemurs, and loads more! Oh and did I mention the admission price…13USD, that’s a total bargain compared to many local Vancouver attractions. Highlight of the visit; two Sumatran tiger cubs who were born May 25th 2010. While we were there the cubs, Mali and Bima, were separated from mother for a short period of time. This is done to acclimate the cubs being away from their mother in the future. One of the cubs was not pleased with being away from mom and was crying for most of the time, though a tiger cub crying sounds more like a unhappy scream!

On the way back I made a quick trip up the space needle in Seattle, which was really cool, but at the same time strangely bizarre. They had a bar at the top, so the elevator ride back down was filled with countless tipsy people. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and it began to pour rain once I arrived at the top. Luckily the rain didn’t impede the really amazing view!

Driving through Seattle just reinforces my disgust and lack of confidence in Vancouver and Lower Mainland drivers. The speed limit is anywhere between 60-70mph, roughly 100-120kmph, and the entire time there wasn’t a single instance where I had to slow down for any reason. The merging lanes are hundreds of metres long, giving drives ample time to match the speed of highway traffic, and they're separated by big concrete dividers until the last few metres so that jerks don't try and merge too early.

Five Stitched Frames EXIF 1/100 sec f/6.3 ISO400 70mm

For more photos, check out my Flickr.com photostream. I’ll cut together a short video once my epic sinus infection subsides and my face stops feeling like it’s going to explode!

UPDATE

So my head stopped feeling as though it was going to explode and I managed to slice together a quick two minute video of footage from Point Defiance.

Neil FisherMarch 15, 2011