Well, today I visited the zoo as I said I would, and immediately it was obvious that they weren’t handling the whole social distancing thing very well. Despite the pandemic, crowds were as dense as ever, and far too many people weren’t wearing masks. Detroit has definitely done a much better job reopening in the world of COVID-19, requiring visitors to book online reservations in advance due to the limited capacity allowed and having signs everywhere about the importance of mask-wearing and social distancing. In fact, it’s been a long-standing tradition of our family to visit the zoo during the holidays for the “Lights Before Christmas”, but my mom is already planning on buying tickets for the Detroit Zoo’s holiday lights show instead because of the dissatisfaction of our experience at Toledo today.
Anyways, onto the animals I saw. Today was the first time I remember going to the large mixed-species Africa habitat and not seeing a single giraffe, though I did get to witness an addra gazelle actually attempting to mount a greater kudu. The three cougars that lived in Tiger Terrace, having arrived just a few years ago, already seem to have left the zoo, as there was a tiger in their former habitat and the sign for them was gone. Speaking of Tiger Terrace, I did see the new Patagonian cavy habitat in the area which formerly held the penguins and more recently pelicans. My parents reasonably forbid me from visiting any of the indoor exhibits because of the aforementioned poor pandemic handling the zoo displayed.