LA Zoo And The Baby Lemur

This weekend we headed to the LA Zoo, mostly because Penelope wanted to go and also because we love monkeys. We didn't realize so many people would also make Sunday their zoo day until we arrived at the parking lot, which was almost completely full! The parking attendants hadn't seen anything like it before. The line was partially due to the opening of the Sea Lion Cliffs immediately greet visitors as they walk into the zoo. We learned the huge line could be conveniently bypassed by shelling out about 55 bucks for an annual pass which we happily paid.

The first thing we noticed after checking out the sea lions was the profusion of shops, stands and restaurants inside the park. We looked at the baby animals in the Winnick Family Animal Care Center, the sign explained that the babies weren't with their mothers because the mothers weren't taking care of them. After that we walked to the aviary which wasn't too impressive compared to the Aquarium of the Pacific's Lorikeet Forest that has more birds plus bird food in the form of nectar.

We headed out of the double doors that people didn't seem to understand the point of as they opened both sides at once and walked up a tree lined road, passed the closed World of Birds and into a slightly confusing maze of circular segmented cages that contained various seemingly unrelated animals including a monkey who though he found a way out involving a loose bolt on his cage and some very vocal parrots. The tightly woven caging made quality photography difficult if not impossible and we yearned for nice transparent glass walls.

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We finally made it to the best section of the zoo which is also the area furthest from the entrance, the monkey zone. This part of the zoo contained lemurs, which are the cutest animals ever and they were happy lemurs, despite being locked up in cages in Southern California instead of swinging from vines in Madagascar. We came to a cage with little happy brown and white lemurs that also had the largest display of humans gathered around laughing, oohing and awing at the newest addition to the lemur family. The little guy couldn't have been more than a foot long, but he was bouncing around in all his springy fur-covered glory putting on a show for the delighted zoo patrons. The baby lemur is a must see and well worth the trip to the crowded zoo in hot July weather.

About a third of the LA Zoo is under construction which will be good when it opens as it will add three large attractions, but currently makes the zoo seem somewhat empty. The attractions in the making include a gorilla reserve, an elephant exhibit and a golden monkey exhibit which we look forward to visiting on a return trip to the zoo in the future.