The Phoenix Zoo, located in central Phoenix, is home to more than 3000 species of animals, including 30 species that are considered either endangered or threatened. This zoo is located about twenty minutes from my home in Phoenix so I decided to go to the Phoenix Zoo with a few of my friends from High School over Spring Break. The first thing I noticed when I entered the zoo were all of the native Sonoran tree species I recognized from pictures in the video presentations in the course such as Mesquites and Palo Verdes. The size of the zoo was a little intimidating as it contains hundreds of enclosures spread over 125 acres. The zoo was extremely clean for how many people were there, and the weather could not have been more perfect on the day I went. It was about 75 degrees without a cloud in sight. The zoo is made up of a winding …show more content…
We walked to the Africa trail section of the zoo, and we saw giraffes, lions, and one of my favorite animals, the baboon. The African animals were all out walking around so we got a great view of all of them. We also paid to do the giraffe encounter that they offer at the zoo. We got to go on a small platform that went into the giraffe enclosure and feed the giraffes which was a really neat experience. It made me think of the example in The Gathering the Desert unit where the giraffe had a behavioral change from being a wild animal to being a tame animal that allows people to feed it (Lotze). Actually getting to see an acclimatization of a wild animal was really cool compared to just being told about it in the lecture. We wanted to see the tropical animals next, so we headed in the direction of the Tropics trail, but got sidetracked when we saw the camel rides. The camel ride was just a short ride in a circle, and it smelled terrible, but it is also pretty cool to be able to say that I have ridden a