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Halloween Extravaganza 2006
Howloween at the Oregon Zoo
I guess things have changed a bit since I was kid, but it seems like each year there are fewer and fewer trick or treaters and more civic events where you can dress up and get candy without having to go pound the pavement. It could be that we no longer trust our neighbors enough to eat their candy, or that
we've simply lost touch with our neighbors, or maybe it's all those damn homeowners associations. In any event, Bear and I spent Saturday at the oregon Zoo for their Howloween celebration.
Howloween consists of a bunch of little kids in costumes who get to play games and crap for candy (and some weird parents also in costume), but more importantly, they feed pumpkinds full of goodies to the various animals at the zoo. After Bear and I got used to all the sticky little children running around, we quickly set in for a day of enjoying the zoo. It had actually been a long long time since either of us had
gone to the zoo and it's actually quite a bit of fun. At least it's fun at the Oregon Zoo where the grounds are well kept and the animals seem happy.
Anyhow, less about that and more about animals eating pumpkins. They fed pumpkins full of stuff to almost all the animals that day, but unless you happened to be there at the time, you only knew this because there were pumpkin shards in the animal's area. But Bear and I got lucky and managed to catch a few pretty cool glimpses of animals enjoying Halloween. I think the best performance was by the wolves.
They have three wolves at the zoo, which is neat because you only tend to see them on tv. It's also cool when they give them jack-o-lanterns full of something wolves really like to eat. Before I could get a picture, they let the wolves into their viewing area where they quickly demolished their treats. What you're looking at here was once a rather large pumpkin, but the wolves descended on it like Bear on trail mix leaving what you see here.
Next door to the wolves is the grizzly bear. When we saw the grizzly that morning it was still waking up and hardly active, but by the end of the day when they put a few pumpkins and a scarecrow in it's area, it had come to full life.
The grizzly was a bit apprehensive and seemed more interested in tearing the scarecrow limb from limb than it was in eating. Although the grizzly bear was a bit slow in its approached, it made it quite clear that it could maul you without breaking a sweat. Later, Bear and I wondered what that guy who made the film about the grizzly bears that ate him was expecting. Once it dismembered the scarecrow, it lumbered over to the pumpkins that it swatted around like you would a ping pong ball.
Obviously the zoo folk had another message to convey here too- nature is cool, but stay the hell away from it. Looking for a bit of a comic relief, Bear and I then headed over to check out the primates. As it turns out, most of the monkeys are just as interested in watching you- so visiting the primate house is more or a staring contest than anything. Me looking at the chimp- the chimp looking at me: it went on for some time.
The Orangutangs were especially bad. This one kept staring at the people staring at it (it's has it's face up to the glass) while snacking on its pumpkin. The pic isn't that great because there were two teenage girls sitting sitting directly in front of the monkey. Along with their carbuncular male companion, they blocked the view for all the little kids who wanted to see this impressive primate. Even the Orangutang looked annoyed.
It was at that moment when I realized that Bear and I were way too old to even pretend we had anything in common with teenagers. I guess that happens without you realizing it, but at least we're not old enough to say something like "you're young enough to be my daughter." That's more frightening than anything I can review here for Halloween.
I don't know where this review is going. I guess the point was that it's fun to see what different places are doing to celebrate the holiday. And that it's cool when a grizzly tears a scarecrow apart. But teenagers are more obnoxious than anything. We'll just leave it at that.
-Mark
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