A DAY WITH THE ANIMALS

If there is anything that can make me happy, it's animals. So yesterday was a great day for me. I got to spend hours and hours with the animals.

I took my Girl Scout Troop to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego.

I love this place so much more then the Zoo. Here, the animals have so much room to roam, run and live.

They are not locked up in small cages. There are acres and acres for them to explore.

They also, live together, just like in Nature.

It is so nice to see how they interact together. It's also like going on an African Safari. In fact, it's most likely the closest thing I'll get to that.

I love this guy! He didn't care who was around. He was going to enjoy his nap in the sun. At first, I thought he was fake. But then he finally lifted his head up and looked around. Then went right back to sleep.

The Girl Scout Program they have for the girls was great. They earned their Wildlife patch and got to get up close to the animals.

They learned what it was like to be a real Animal Scientist.

We all learned so much. Like, did you know the softest animal is the Chinchilla? If you close your eyes and touch the fur you will be at least an inch into the fur before you can even feel it. Try it sometime.

I loved watching the Flamingos. They had several little babies. They are little grey fluff balls.

It's so funny how they stand on one leg. I wonder why that is? I should have asked.

I did learn that in order for them to eat, they dip their head in the water and turn it upside down because they have a built in screen that filters out the items to big for them to eat.

Did you know what they eat? Algae.

This big guy cracked me up. He kept sticking his tongue out at me and then he wold smile. So cute!

The Condor Bird was almost extinct. There were only 22 of them left in the world. So they gathered them all up, helped them breed and now there are over 350 of them that they have released back into the wild.

The main reason these birds are having trouble is because they eat only dead animals. A lot of the animals they eat were killed by hunters that left the animal behind after killing it. Since the bullets are made of lead these birds got lead poison and died.

Plus they feed their babies tiny bone pieces. So the lead would kill the babies.

While I can't stand the thought of people going out to hunt and kill animals for any reason, it breaks my heart to think they kill just for the sport and not to eat the meat.

They tried to get a law passed to make lead bullets against the law but it didn't pass. So please, write to your Congressman/woman and ask him/her to pass a law to make bullets out of lead against the law. They can make them out of other things that won't kill off our wild life that eats the killed animals.

This is California's State bird. The bald Eagle. The Eagles here are not able to fly for one reason or another. So they do keep them in a cage but only to protect them. The cage is big and they get plenty of exercise in them.

What a beautiful animal! How could anyone kill this just to make a coat? Please people, get a fake! They are pretty and you don't have to hurt these lovely animals.

You can pay $90 to take a Photo Journey. You get to go in these smaller trucks and they get right up next to the animals. They were even getting to pet and feed the animals.

This is something I will be doing someday soon! Doesn't it sound like fun?

I could spend days just watching all the different animals. It is so fun to watch how they would act in the wild.

If you ever get a chance to go here, I hope you will. It is worth every penny to get in. Plus, all the money goes right back into helping the animals. They are actually a Non Profit organization.