When I was young I loved the show "The Wild Thornberrys" about a family of wildlife documentarians who travel around the world filming animal documentaries, and mainly centers around the youngest daughter who has the magical ability to talk to animals (and understand them) and her adventures in the jungle. I probably liked that show longer than I should have. It represents a lot of what I still wish my life could be like. Traveling around creating art that educates and serves a purpose and getting to play with and see animals in their natural habitat is pretty much my least achievable life dream.
And that is why I go back and forth on my love for zoos. On the one hand, I understand that Seattle is not most of those creatures natural habitat, or climate, and that while zoos work incredibly hard to give the creatures a lot of life enrichment and the best lives possible that it is probably not the same as being free. On the other hand, there is no other situation where I will ever get to be so close to a snow leopard (the most elusive large cat in the world) play and climb trees, let alone be close to it. Where else are kids who are raised in the city able to learn about animals with actual context for what those creatures are? Zoos are great for that. My love for wild animals was born out of trips to the zoo and attending zoo camps. I am certain that there are many animal lovers who learned that love in much the same way.
Which leads us to the Woodland Park Zoo of Seattle.
I have been to the Woodland Park Zoo many times for many reasons, most recently (at the time of writing this but perhaps not by the time I publish it) for their Pumpkin Bash the Saturday before Halloween. This event was a lot of fun. First, all of the kids and families running around the zoo were in costumes. Second, the animals were each given pumpkins in their enclosures as part of their daily "animal enrichment" with fun things in the pumpkins to play with and tear apart. My friend Heather and I had the best timing with this enrichment too, we managed to get to most of the enclosures either just after or just before the animals got their new toys and they were very active, in no small part thanks to the fact that it was a cool day.
Here's what you should know about The Woodland Park Zoo in order to make your trip as fun as possible:
1) The feeders wear forest green shirts.
This may not seem like important information but a little known zoo secret is; if you want the animals to pay attention to you, you should wear the colors they are used to seeing people they like wearing.
2) There are several pay parking lots and it is worth it to pay for parking.
Parking in Seattle is the worst. Finding street parking and walking a mile before walking around the zoo for 3 hours is doubly so. I don't even want to tell you haw frustrating trying to parallel park in that area can be.
3) Do not miss the northwest trail!
I know, it seems like you live in the Pacific Northwest and that shouldn't be interesting but the she-wolf pack they have is the coolest thing ever! Sometimes they try to hunt the elk in the next enclosure which is also pretty rad.
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