Lions and tigers and bears...all in tiny cages...

I woke up this morning with a yen to walk around in the strange light that suddenly appeared in the heavens. I asked the locals what it was and was told that it was 'slunce', which translates to 'the sun'. Hmmm...that brings me back.
So I scanned the map of the city I have taped to my bedroom wall and located several parks I hadn't gone to, but then saw the green splotch labeled 'Zoologicka Zahrada'. I could figure this one out on my own - 'zoologicka' meaning 'place of fake trees' and 'zahrada' meaning 'pushy Czech people'. Off I went.
On the bus ride there I was surrounded by excited kids in colorful mittens and hats and parents popping pain killers and massaging their temples. I had been thinking about how nice it would be to be going with a family with kids - nieces, nephews, friends kids - but then I realized that I was really looking forward to being there alone. I could plant myself in front of the monkey house or the tiger pen for a full hour each if I felt like it. I could avoid the spider room without shame for once and sit inside the warm 'Afriky' pavilion for the whole afternoon if I wanted to. And I did. Well, not the whole afternoon, but long enough to feel like I'd thawed sufficiently. And I watched the monkeys go through 3 full shifts of grooming.
One of my favorite parts was the 'Twilight Room' with open pens for kangaroo mice and bats. Every few seconds a bat would take flight and buzz everyones heads, causing far less distress than I'd anticipated, and to be honest, had hoped for. People were fine with good-sized bats (2' wingspans) patrolling the small dark cave, their silvery wings brushing hair, backpacks and any kids who were getting piggy-back rides. Had I been subjected to a dark cave with bats flying around as a kid I may turned out to be a less timid adult. Or I just would have had nightmares like I did about the Electricity Room at the Museum of Science.
Other highlights included seeing two huge tigers prowling around an outdoor pen, their exhalations coming out in visible blasts in the chilly air. But the sense of sadness in seeing them cooped up like that only multiplied when I entered into another pavilion and discovered many more tigers. Unlike the lucky ones who had a hillside the size of a decent front yard to walk around in, these indoor ones were confined to a little room that looked to have been designed with a much smaller animal in mind. An animal whose natural habitat involved concrete, a half dozen fake trees and little else. They paced their cages, tails twitching and looking hungrily at the people who tapped on the glass and aimed phones and cameras at them. I thought of snapping a picture myself but just couldn't bring myself to do join the ranks of those who had just elbowed me out of the way so they could capture a captured tiger on their video camera phone that hung around their neck on a colorful lanyard.
The lion was worse. Somehow they'd managed to find him a smaller cage, maybe something a pygmy shrew recently vacated. The lion wasn't just pacing. He was baring his teeth and throwing his shoulder into the glass at every turn, causing deep 'booms' to echo through the pavilion. At one point he lunged at a man who was watching him through the viewscreen on his camera. His huge face struck the glass and left white strands of drool dripping down to the floor. The man just laughed and flashed his teeth at his friends who stood a few feet away. Did I want the glass to break? Well...
But some of the animals seemed happy. The zebras stood in the slunce like statues and looked out on the wide field that they had free reign of. If only it wasn't 30 degrees it might have felt something like home to them. The giraffes ate from large clumps of grass that had been thoughtfully put on a high shelf to make them feel like their ridiculous necks were worth having. The otters ran hither and yon over their enclosure, gathering dead white mice that lay there like manna that some Otter-god had delivered in the night. They would grab two or three at a time, galumph over to the water and, after taking the mice for a few spins around the pool (to soften them up?) they'd perch somewhere and begin gleefully ripping their heads off and devouring them.
So here are some random pictures at the 'zahrada'. Enjoy