Sunday, March 13, 2016

Trip To The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens

A few days ago, I had the honor to receive a personal guided tour of the zoo led by my friend Lynn Toler whom I used to work with at Lockheed. After Lynn retired, she became a docent at the zoo and the animals are her passion.

We spent the entire day walking around the zoo and gardens, checking out all of the different species of animals there. It had been about 4 or 5 years since I had been to the zoo and there were several changes and new exhibits.

The Los Angeles Zoo is located in Griffith Park which is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. The zoo was founded in 1966 and is owned by the city of Los Angeles. The zoo originally opened as The Griffith Park Zoo back in 1912 and only had 15 animals.

I took a lot of photos, but I shared just a few to share with you here on my blog. I hope you enjoy them.

The entrance to the zoo is huge and spectacular. I reminds me of the wall that was built to hold back King Kong.


The zoo has animals from all over the world and tries its best to make the animals feel at home by recreating an atmosphere that is close to their original homeland.

Here is a kangaroo mother and her little joey. She actually had twins, but the other one was wandering around when I took this shot.


I love the giraffes. They have several at the zoo as they seem to be very fertile. The giraffes have such beautiful, long eyelashes.


I always enjoy watching the gorillas and the chimps. They are so much like us humans.



I think the big cats are my favorite animals at the zoo. I am a dog-person, but I think that large cats are so cool.

The zoo has one male lion and one female lion. They were both asleep when we came by. Here is the male.


One of the most beautiful animals on earth is the tiger and the one at our zoo is spectacular.


If you are every in Los Angeles, the L.A. Zoo is a must to see.