lemurs and tigers and fossa - oh my!

Sunday was another gorgeous day, clear, bright and blue from the get-go.  We had a brief morning meeting with our realtor and then, once that business was out of the way, decided to do something outside and new: we'd go to the Hogle Zoo.  After a stop in at Ruth's Diner - which is just up the road from the Zoo, so how could we not - for huevos rancheros (H) and corned beef hash (A - and it was excellent, not at all greasy, with potatoes both crispy and tender, and tons of corned beef),  we parked in the nearly empty zoo lot, paid our $9 each, and were off to see the animals.

I don't go to zoos very often but when I do, I like to go in the winter when there aren't so many people.  Many of the Hogle's animals are cold climate critters so they can be observed in their outdoor habitats year-round, particularly the Asian big cats (Amur tigers, snow leopards, Siberian lynxes and Pallas' cats) and the locals (wolves, bighorn sheep, cougars, black bear).  There are lots of babies there now - elephant, colobus monkey, giraffe, tiger cubs, Siamese crocodile, black-footed cat, snow leopard - which is fun; and they have an extensive smaller mammal house which includes funky porcupines, cacomistles, kinkajous, cavies (cavys?), hyraxes, agoutis and Channel Island foxes.

My favorite, baby elephant notwithstanding, was the fossa, in large part because I've never seen one before, not even in a photograph.  Native to Madagascar (and currently endangered), this young guy was gorgeous, looking like a cross between a cat and a weasel, but taking all the best characteristics from each.  Fossa are actually more closely related to mongooses and are strong, agile predators whose favorite food is a tasty lemur.  They weigh about 26 pounds and average six feet in length from whiskery nose to tail tip.  The Hogle's fossa is two year old male who demonstrated quite a bit of charisma for us, circling his enclosure and gracefully scaling the tree branches, and flirting with the zookeeper when she came in, having learned that a keeper's arrival means he's about to be fed.  Unfortunately, this fossa is a visitor to SLC, however, and will soon on his way to the Denver zoo.

We ended up wandering around for an enjoyable 2.5 hours, making our way to every exhibit, including the interactive prairie dog one.  I think I'll go back in the springtime when there may be even more babies and when the animals are shaking off their long winter.