I WENT TO THE ZOO! ok, photos with yu xian, shall upload later.

it was extremely fun and enjoyable! it taught me a lot! fun facts 101:
#123: polar bears has black skin and transparent fur
#245: penguins are found only to the south of the equator. there are acutally penguins along the coast of africa
#456: gestation period of an elephant is between 20 to 22 months, longest recorded: 25 months!
#965: there are 17 fishing fields in the world, 4 depleted, 13 overly fished.

alrights, i noticed a very disturbing fact. whenever the zoo keepers give commentaries, they'll stress that the animals are well taken care of in the zoo. citing longer lifespan and better "quality" of life as proof. they are kinda erm... i think "covering their ass" is quite an apt description. i dun noe, perhaps the animals may be better off out in the wild? not as bored as they seem while kept in captivity. but, they'll have to worry about food and diseases which are taken care of if they r in captivity.

another thing. the animals participating in the animal shows are EXTREMELY well trained. timing is almost perfect! however, almost all the animals except the elephants seem to be extremely familiar with the reward scheme. u work well, u get food. the elephants, however, were not trained like that. they did the stunts and tricks really well and did not need to be fed during the show.

lastly, during animal feeding times, the keepers will say that such activities keep the animals occupied and that it breaks their routine and gets them to exercise a bit. sorry, but it sounds weird to me. especially when the feeding times are FIXED. isnt that a routine in itself?

food for thought.