Last Saturday, I left campus at 8 a.m. to go to the Bronx Zoo. Why was I at the zoo, you might ask? I was there for important zoo business of course, mainly to study the hell out of the red ruffed lemurs and gelada monkeys so I could compare them in a study.
This meant watching an enclosure for an hour and scribbling what’s going on every couple of minutes. After studying two primate species, we would get zoo free time before heading back at three. My friend Miles, a Bronx native and unbiased source, told me that the Bronx Zoo is the best zoo in the world, which got me excited to see everything.
Of course, the trip being on Halloweekend was semi-tragic. I mean, zoos are typically filled with kids, but these were kids emboldened with costumes. I really thought there would be more animal costumes seeing as you DECIDED to go to the ZOO and here you are DRESSED AS OPTIMUS PRIME. I saw some half-committed butterfly costumes here and there and plenty of ninja turtles, but the thing about ninja turtles is that they just happen to be turtles. There is nothing turtle-like about them. In another universe, where they’re a gang of pizza-eating ninja triangles, no one is saying “Why aren’t they turtles, though?”
Us Vassar students, too, joined in the Halloween fun, each of us carrying dollar store clipboards and an air of sophistication as we pretended we were scientists for the day.
The bus trip took an hour and a half, some of us entering the zoo caffeinated and others half-awake (me). All of us started huddled up around a map sign. Since I am a navigationally challenged person, I purchased the two-dollar Bronx Zoo interactive map app. I used to be really shrewd about buying paid apps, but I’m personally much more financially stable now than when I was 12, so I can shell out a few bucks to see a little blue dot of me on a map. I’ve paid far more for far stupider things in my life.
Next, I went straight to the Madagascar building, the home of the lemurs, where I would be studying the red ruffed lemur. I went through the first door and I saw sifakas; next door, ring-tailed lemurs. Just as doubt set in, after the next door, there they were: three semi-bald, gingery beings perching on tree branches. I immediately started writing stuff down: The study had begun. Everything was great for the first half hour: These three lemurs were perching, moving, eating leaves and constantly licking tree branches—it was great.
Then out of nowhere, they all scampered up to the top of the enclosure where I could barely see them and did NOTHING. For 40 MINUTES. My disappointment was immeasurable. Halfway through those 40 minutes, a realization dawned on me: Why am I letting three red ruffed lemurs determine my level of happiness today? The real menace is all the moms telling their kids that these were monkeys. Is it true that the three lemurs just sat there for half of my study? Yes. But I still love them <3.
After leaving Madagascar, I walked a ways to the geladas, which were in a large outdoor enclosure featuring ibexes and hyraxes. No oxes or axolotls were present. The gelada monkeys proved far more interesting than the lemurs off the bat. I could watch those guys pick bugs out of each other’s hair for hours. Unfortunately, they all just started eating grass halfway through my study, which was fine, but it got pretty boring writing down “eating” every two minutes. Near the end of my time there, they started picking at each other’s ears again, but pretty soon my study was over. I liked watching the ibexes and the hyraxes from time to time too. The ibexes naturally intimidated the monkeys, and the hyraxes were just scared of everything. I can imagine their inner monologue: “Why am I spending the rest of my life with a bunch of monkeys that eat grass all day? Why did hyrax God put me in this situation?” I feel for those little guys.
After all that primate studying, I was so hungry I could eat a tapir, so headed back up to central dining, the Dancing Crane Cafe. I passed all sorts of exhibits on the way back, but the wildest one still proved to be the food court (pause for laughter). In all seriousness, central dining at the Bronx Zoo—the Dancing Crane Cafe—is a mess. I got a more severe form of Deece whiplash entering this place. It was loud, confusing and chaotic, featuring grab-and-go food. “Was it better than what Vassar Dining offered, seeing as you paid $25 for a boiled hotdog, fries, a brownie and a water, Nick?” Yes. A thousand times yes.
Amid all the chaos of the Dancing Crane, I happened to run into Jacques, the Misc Editor-in-Chief, who was at a table. He was also there studying the primates. I sat down and we had a great chat until he started discussing his Editor-in-Chief duties. I finished my boiled hot dog very quickly, not because Jacques was depressing me, but because I had more zoo to experience!
Well, that would be after I hit up the gift shop (it was right next door, I had to). There I found a beautiful red ruffed lemur plush, which I bought to commemorate the 70 minutes I spent attempting to study red ruffed lemurs. They are in my heart forever now.
At this point, it was 1 p.m., which meant I had two hours to speedrun the rest of the zoo. This meant no bugs and no reptiles. Only cool, medium to big stuff that moves. With my time, I hit up the Congo Gorilla Forest, the Himalayan Highlands, the African Plains, Tiger Mountain, the World of Birds and ended at the Bison Range. As a Buffalo native, I feel personally connected to the bison. I learned on the enclosure placard that it’s America’s national mammal, which is essentially an Olympic silver medal. Major snub by the Founding Fathers.
At the end of the day, despite trying to see everything, I did miss some cool things like the Butterfly Garden and the Mouse House (if only because of its name). Really, all of the exhibits had fun names, except the grizzly bear one, which is just called “Bears.” Maybe it could’ve been “The Bear Zone” instead.
So all in all, was the Bronx Zoo “the best zoo in the world”? I’m not sure I can say that. It was certainly a quality zoo, but not by any insane margin. My biggest comparison zoo is the Buffalo Zoo, (which I went to twice last summer, so I’m basically an expert on it), and while the Bronx Zoo is better, it didn’t blow me out of the water with superiority. The Bronx is notably a larger zoo where walking times matter, even for a speedy boy like me.
I also noticed a lot more conservation pushes than I ever have at the Buffalo Zoo. These were well-intentioned, but at some point, do I really need to see a picture of a gorilla head in a frying pan? I would love, just once, a zoo exhibit with a species that everybody hates, like mosquitos, just millions of them flying around. There would be signs around that say, “These guys suck and we hate them.”
But anyways, the Bronx was a blast. I got to see plenty of the Bronx’s creatures acting in strange ways, which was great. The animals weren’t half-bad either.