Bronx Zoo Rox

Justine and I went to the Bronx Zoo yesterday. As you may know, Leviathan has tons of animals in it, so I was up for some face-to-face contact. This kind of research is important, because reading about an animal doesn’t tell you how it moves, how it smells, or how it reacts to a sudden shrieking noise that I call “El Banshee.” It just ain’t the same.

We were shown around by an old friend of mine, a wildlife conservator who has an office at the zoo, but usually works in places like Afghanistan, Iran, and Tibet. He and his wife once drove a baby snow leopard across Pakistan, which sounds exciting, because, like, the Taliban is there. He does a lot of dangerous stuff like that. When my friend and I worked together in publishing, the whole office voted him “Most Likely to Die in a Foreign Land.”

But he’s survived long enough for us to get an excellent tour of the zoo.

There were lemurs, who are always totally chill.

zoolemur

And we got to watch a “tiger enrichment session” from really close up.

zootiger

The tiger is doing tricks because it wants a “bloodsicle.” Here’s what I think: if anything at your job wants a “bloodsicle,” your job is more dangerous than mine.

We also wanted to see meerkats, but sadly there are none left at the zoo. So (as twittered yesterday) my pal took us back to his office where he has a meerkat skull.

zooskull

No, I don’t think this skull from a meerkat that used to be at the zoo. My friend has always owned stuff like meerkat skulls. It is from him that I learned the term “maggoting room.” I use it often.

As we were leaving, I realized it had been more than a decade since I’d been up to the Bronx Zoo, and years since I’d been to any zoo at all, and that sucks. You can’t expect to understand your own planet if you don’t occasionally check out the other 99.9% of species that live here. And you can’t really be much of a writer if you don’t understand your planet.

There’s only so much that can happen in coffee shops. Eventually you should get your characters out of talking about lattes and into the land of bloodiscles.

So as you guys get older and more stuck in your ways like me, try to remember these deceptively simple words:

Don’t forget to go to the zoo.

Update:
As it’s Friday, let me remind you that I haz a Twitter.
https://twitter.com/scottwesterfeld

63 thoughts on “Bronx Zoo Rox

  1. Um, is it OK if I skip out on the “tiger enrichment” session next time? I get my daily tiger requirement from my multivitamin, and I don’t think I need any more.

    On the other hand: ZOO!!!!!!

  2. Snow leopards are my most favourite animals in the world!!! Geese are my second, wolves my third.
    I’ve only been to small zoos, but lucky enough they had a snow leopard. Although I felt terribly for it so trapped. I mean, it had a fair amount of space, but still….
    I don’t really like zoos, because I don’t think they are fair to animals, but I do like being able to see such beautiful animals up close. Icy major!

  3. Although I suppose… some of the bigger zoos get it quite right and give animals more space and realistic habitats… it does help bring back some endangered species and all, but it’s still a little sad.
    I do hope to go to a zoo this summer.

  4. Scott-la, those words are totally genius. “Don’t forget to go to the zoo.” Ha, I promise I won’t! I love lemurs! And tigers!!! Okay ya I love just about any animal. But great advice!

  5. The Dallas Zoo is amazing, but I can never get anybody to go with me. It’s only $10 and I can take the train there and back, but without a friend, tapping on the snake’s enclosure just isn’t as fun.

    This has just been added on my list of things to do this summer: find someone to go to the zoo with me.

  6. This is why it’s important to have friends (or children of friends) that are small children. Nothing is cooler than watching a toddler freak out over how cool the monkeys are!

  7. I love animals! My best/most memorable experience with animals of the non-pet variety is this one time I went to Sea World and a polar bear was walking on this little ledge thing RIGHT BY THE GLASS. I was, like, THIS *holds hands about three feet apart* close to a polar bear. It was sooo cute!!!! Polar bears are officially some of my favorite animals. 😀
    My last trip to the zoo was kind of boring because we went too early and all the animals were asleep. 😛

    That tiger was really cute! I love big cats (and little ones)! 😀

  8. Mmm… nothin like a good bloodsicle too cool you down on a summer day… And I promise you, I will never forget the zoo 🙂
    I can’t wait for Leviathan to come out! I read the 1st chapter in Bubbly to Bogus and I’m slightly impatient for it’s arrival 🙂 Not to sound too obsessed, or like I have short-term memory problems, but I’ve read each of the Uglies books like eight times lol

  9. Bloodsicles? Really? That’s so cool:DDD

    You know, I’ve never actually been to the zoo. I’m gonna have to start. Maybe my terrible bouts of writer’s block will finally come to an end:P

  10. Scott if you see this…could you tell us what is happening with the Uglies movie?….is it still happening

  11. Oh god.. bloodsicle….that’s mildly intimidating

    The zoo is amazing though. I never tire of seeing animals, mundane or fantastic. I wish I had the time to go more often.

  12. hehe! I love going to the zoo. My favorite part is going into a butterfly inclosure (but u get really hot ans sticky coz the humidity has 2 be super high)

  13. When you and Justine come back to the Land Down Under you guys should visit Werribee Zoo in Victoria. When I was there last they had the Meerkats right next to the cafe, and they watched you while you ate (or the other way around). Or Healsville Sanctuary – they let you hold the snakes.

  14. Synchronicity.
    Twas my birthday last Friday, and I took the day off and took myself to the zoo. Met an elephant named Num Oi and played soccer with her. Then had lunch with the baboons.

    (Melbourne Zoo has two or three enclosures for meerkats, that’s how many they have.)

  15. Sounds like more fun than my paradise. It is a little poor mans adventure called a hobby farm, for those who can’t be separated from the creatures.

  16. i needa gooo to the zoo. i havnt been to the bronx zoo since i was 5 and i dont rmeber it =[

    this summer ill go though =]]]

  17. aww i love zoos. havent been in years though – we dont have many good zoos in London. =[

  18. The African Lion Safari in Toronto is amazing. You actually get to drive around (an a pre-set road) the plains. It isn’t just you walking around and looking at animals through a glass wall or cage bars, but it’s you right there and the animals are on the other side of your car. They keep certain animals away from each other (the lions and the tigers are on opposite ends of the reserve and there aren’t any bears) but a lot of the herbivores are in the same area.

    That tiger actually looks like it could be fairly young.

  19. So at first, when you said “Drove a baby snow leopard across Pakistan,” I had this vision of a snow leopard in horse reigns attached to a carriage…and then I was like no, that can NOT be what he meant. A leopard in a car would make MUCH more sense [:

  20. 1. the Zoo is awsome!
    2. Did you scream at the animals to see how they reacted to “El Banshee”? if so I’m a little worried.
    3. I was just at Sea World last week and it’s flippin amazing.
    4. My friend and I have been planning a zoo trip forever but I jetted of to be with Shamu and she drove of to be with the meeses of Canada.
    5. Lemurs are flippin fantastic

  21. hmm, i love the ” Tapping on the snake enclosure just isn’t as fun”, Katie.
    oooh i just found an old poem i wrote a few months ago..here it is!!!
    Always
    A heart is shattered, torn to pieces.
    Being dragged around in tow.
    And none shall ever know.
    And the trees will always grow.
    And the rivers will always flow.

    The men and women hustle by,
    Passing and not batting an eye.
    When this man shall slowly die,
    Not one will mourn or cry.
    But the birds will always fly.
    And the men keep walking by.

    I know it’s sort of sisnister and sad, but that’s just how i take poetry. You know, it’s sort of like a bloodsicle. You have to take life with them sometimes….

  22. oh liv-wa, i didn’t even think about the car part. i thought that they just chased it around, like, driving it on, maybe i spend too much time riding, with my instructer melissa telling me to keep driving on while i ride to get them on the bit, i will stop now.. im sorry but i haven’t seen my horsey friends in a week, i seriously need to talk horses!!

  23. Oh, wow, I just went to the zoo yesterday! It was a lot of fun, but I felt really bad for some of the animals (they had really small ‘cages’).
    It sounds like your friend has a really cool job… I should look into that kind of thing. ;D
    (Heheheh… Bloodsicle…)

  24. Cool, zoo! Haha I live right by Sea World San Antonio! Like it’s only like a 15 min drive to go see Shamu or whatever. Anthony hates me every time I go with him because he always wants me to go on the Steel Eel, White Shark, or Journey to Atlantis, and I always say no. Excuse me, but not everyone has to like roller coasters. And you can’t say that I just am scared, because I’ve been on them, so I no that I don’t like them too much. I just hate the big drop, and will not go upside down, ever. It was so cool, like when I lived in Dayton, OH before I moved to S.A. right before we moved we went up to Cedar Point with our family friends (Which was the last time we saw eachother), and I found this roller coaster that was like prrrrrrrfect for me! It didn’t have a huge drop, and didn’t go upside down, but it went fast and all over the place! It was real fun. And it was not a kiddie ride, it was a big ride, just not too crazy, you know? And there was this one called the Iron Dragon, that was fun. It had one of those big drops, but it wasn’t too bad… it was just at the boundry of it being fun and it being too much for me. It was stretchin it for me, but I still loved it! At one point, you almost crash into the water below, but it straightens out just before you do. Like, it feels like your shoes can almost skim the water, it was cool! You know, that was like almost 3 years ago… perhaps I should go to Six Flags Fiesta Texas and see if I’ve changed any with roller coasters… you never know…

  25. lmao. That reminds me of our Honor Society zoo trip this year. Yes, 10th graders have zoo trips, too. We just got to wander without chaperones. What do you get when you let the smartest kids in the school go to the zoo un-chaperoned? Bad things. . .

  26. OMG i am am an animal fanatic (according to my friends) i love the zoo i spend half my summer there a lot of times (if i am lucky)!! The meercat scull was so cool the Oragen zoo has i think 12 meercats!!

  27. The best thing I ever saw at the zoo was when an idiot was taunting a tiger, then jumping back out of range. The tiger turned its back on the man and sprayed pee all over him. Revenge is sweet!

  28. Alex-wa, I love coasters! One of the best coasters I’ve ever been on is X at Magic Mountain. The seats flip around and there are a bunch of loops and stuff, it’s awesome!!! 😀
    I can’t stand wooden coasters, they’re too rough (and they never look or feel very sturdy).

    Georgiana, that’s gross, but kinda funny. 😆

  29. I LOVE rollar coasters! I’m going to Magic Mountain in July! It’s gonna be so much fun! Upside down, fast, drops, anything, I just love it. Such an adrenaline rush!!!!!! Georgiana, that is AMAZING. GO TIGER! I’d have laughed so hard I cried if I saw that!

  30. Instead of zoos, which I detest, I prefer going into the backyard where in the early morning, mule deer hang out–or I can walk a mile away from house and see more varied wildlife. I hate zoos.

  31. i hate rollar coasters , but i still go on them . idk why :L
    Jude: wow, you must live in quite a wildlife-y area.

  32. U guys who live near zoos r sooo lucky. ugh, sry, im using my friends mini laptop, and its keys r s small i keep typoing…huff.
    alex-wa: ur sea world has 3 roller coasters??? lucky!! it tkaes an hour and a half to get to san diegos sea world, and the only ride there is journey to atlantis, and this wet ride whose name i forgot. anyway, u sit in this circle thing and splash and bump against stragngers. not fun, so it doesnt count. sry again 4 th typos guys, mini keyboard=not very coheren…i want a macbook…but no i hav a windows xp from 3 yr ago and my friend hsa a minilaptop. and im stuck here [no offense staphany] until probly 11. p.m. which means accidentally typing weird stuff into youtub search engines, and typing scotts website wrong ad getting a clothing store instead.
    it a wonderful life, ppl, and im living the mini keyboard dream.

  33. Riva-la: It sounds less like a dream and more like a nightmare! lol

    Pony-la: I like that poem you wrote. It’s kind of sad but like, an enlightening sad. ‘Cause that’s kind of how life is.

    As far as zoos go I haven’t been to one since, like, preschool or whatever. There’s not a lot around here and if there is, it’s dilapidated and sad. I kind of Agree with Jude on that, but I’d only see deer, rabbits, my pigs or birds if I went outside.

    Jude: Where do you live? (is not trying to be creepy)

    Georgiana: Don’t mess with the tigers! Muahahahaha!

    Dahlia-wa: Wooden roller coasters totally suck!

    Has anyone ever been to Dollywood in Tennessee?
    Bye! : D

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