No rain? No dark skies? No 40-degree highs? Seattle seems to be have been suffering from a bit of spring weather over the past few days (although the rain is supposed to return Thursday).
A friend drove up to visit from Olympia, so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather Monday to head to the zoo. It was a nice walk from Queen Anne to Woodland Park; we went by way of Lake Union and stopped in Fremont on the way. I had never been to the zoo and, seeing as my next job could be almost anywhere, I’m trying to catch up on some Seattle locales I haven’t visited. She’s an animal lover, so it seemed like the spot to go.
The zoo buzzed with activity because of spring break. The sun shone and the animals seemed to want to come out and play. So why was the experience a little dreary? Well, I happened to be reading the signs on the enclosures. What you learn is that almost every animal there is facing an environmental apocalypse: Shrinking numbers, destroyed habitats and myriad other woes. You had the sense that some of the last of these species were there in those zoo exhibits and others around the world instead of in the wild.
I remember how much I loved going to the zoo as a kid to see all the animals. Did they not have as many of these animals-in-peril signs then, did I not read them or has the problem become drastically worse in the past 20 years? It’s probably a combination of the three, but it certainly made the day a little less joyful than the zoo visits I remember. Of course, the kids there were having a great time — watching the otters race around their pool, an arctic fox hunt for insects in a mound of dirt and a lovely jaguar give itself a tongue bath. I quite enjoyed the otters myself, but was disappointed the penguins weren’t on exhibit.
Exiting the zoo, one can check out a digital billboard that offers stark evidence that one species is facing no such decline: Humans. The board showed the human population — more than 6.7 billion and mounting every second.
