Jardim Zoológico, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Oh what wonders are there to behold at the Rio Zoo? My boyfriend Orien and I pay our ten real each (approx $5 US) to enter the impressive arched gates positioned at the end of a long promenade. We step inside the zoo into a 30 acre expanse housing over 2,000 animals. The monkeys were some of my favorites. Specifically the Mandril, with his bright blue and crimson snout and ultramarine ass, was one of the most impressive creatures I’ve ever seen. He had such an intense stare and an astounding presence. He snarled his lips open at us, revealing his gargantuas, monstrous, teeth. Then he whipped out his bright red little penis and started inspecting it and waggling it around. He seemed to have a rift with his lady friend, because when he walked in the house where she was, she stormed out with a puff and moped in the corner of her yard.

(You can create your own story from this)

 

The Mandril (photo courtesy of Wikipedia) (Sorry for google images-sourced photos, my camera got destroyed in the Magic Carpet ride adventure)

I adore the marmosets, they are so small and curious. They jumped back and forth wildly in their cage, swinging on ropes with ceaseless energy. They made me want to snip the wires and let them out to bound into the world of trees above. It was a bizarre scene for me. There were the encaged monkeys in front of us, and then the free, wild monkeys over our heads of the same kind. It was a similar situation for many of the birds. Some of the caged birds looked depressed. Most of them could not really fly around in their low ceilinged cages. The Toucan, which we did not see wild, was the most magnificent and gorgeous bird I have ever set eyes on. It’s beak, with an orange, green, red and black pattern was so thin and luminescent. It’s black feathers were so velvety. 

Next we found the giraffe. What a creature! So gentle and awkwardly graceful. We watched him eat half of a large bin of grasses. We both really wanted to see the anteater with it’s strange snout and funny body and we wandered around the zoo looking for it while trying to guess how to say anteater in Portuguese so that we could ask directions. We could not communicate the idea of an anteater with sherades, as funny as it was to try, and so Orien drew up a quick, silly sketch for one of the zookeepers and she pointed us in the right direction. We found him in all his long snouted glory, high up in a tree.

Orien’s anteater sketch.

Now I am saddened by the wildcat situation at the Rio zoo. Those poor, majestic animals were wilting in their cages. The leopard looked oddly obese and had a sick, red eye. The tiger had a limp and the lion, being teased by some thoughtless children, roared so loud that it echoed the park and seemed to rumble the ground. We fled from there feeling sorry and sad.

And then we came across it, The Cow! We laughed and laughed for a good minute about the cow. A common dairy cow. She had her own luxurious pen, one of the nicest and most spacious in all the Zoo. 

Zoos are often hard to stomach, and the Rio zoo was. The animals didn’t seem to be getting the care that they need. Many of them are depressed and have sores on their skin or gimp legs; they don’t look healthy.

On a brighter side, there is a lot of good information about the animals and some of them do seem to be adequately cared for. But, seeing anything trapped in a cage makes me sad. I don’t know whether it’s better to go to the zoo and give them your five real or to boycott zoos altogether. I suppose it’s better to go, this zoo seems to need more funding and if no one went, the animals would surely suffer even more.

Soon we are going to Parque da Quinta da Boa Vista, a paradisiacal park near the zoo in Rio. I hear there are swan boats!

More soon~