IT'S ANIMALS, BRO
Written: November 3rd, 2021 | Taken: September 7th, 2021
It's time for another one of these! I went out somewhere and took a bunch of pictures I'd like to share, only there's a twist this time around! This page is both 2 months overdue(sorry about that...) and part of a collab with the good ol' badgerman. It was a very fun day that left us both exhausted, but sporting a lot of photos and a pair of plushies. >:3c My plush from the trip still chills on my desk as I write this.
I'll be splitting this up into sections since there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Please do check out Cameron's side of this adventure as well! He got some really cool shots that are exclusive to that page!
Introduction
Back in September of this year, I invited my good pal, Cammy to go to Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey with me. I hadn't been there in many years and knew they'd changed in that time, so I was pretty excited to see and take pictures of all the animals. Sadly, we didn't get to see everything we were interested in seeing, but we saw a hell of a lot so we weren't complaining. Incoming is not all of the pictures I took, definitely not, but the ones I felt were good enough to share. Some photos me and Cameron took ended up very similar, so I've taken it upon myself to make sure what I'll be sharing here is unique. >:3c
African Adventure
African Adventure is the section of the park where Cameron and I kicked off this little adventure of ours! As the name might suggest, this area was dedicated very purely to African based wildlife. Animals like lions, hyena, giraffes and the great and mighty bontebok were present.
Apparently, the bontebok, or as I will affectionately call the "bontebonk", was 17 individuals away from being hunted into extinction by humans in the 1800s. Through the good will of a few local families in South Africa who had these remaining 17, they were saved through the creation of temporary reserves that kept them safe from hunters. They're extinct in the wild, but continue to flourish in private farms and a few reservations. They're no longer endangered! :D
A few things in the zoo asked you wear a mask to enter, something that was an unpleasant inconvenience for me and utterly rejected by Cameron. As such, there were some things only I did or things from exclusively my perspective. In this case, I got up real close and fed a pair of hungry giraffes.
This picture was taken from my perspective, but Cammy also got a picture from where he was standing which can be viewed on his page!
NOW LET ME EXPLAIN. At this Zoo, there is a cheetah named Nandi who was paired up with a labrador retriever named Bowie when they were both incredibly young to help ease her anxiety and make her feel more confident. They've since become inseperable siblings. Yes, this cheetah has an emotional support dog. Yes, it is adorable.
Before these photos were taken, these two were grooming each other. Then, Bowie got up and walked a few feet away, presumably exploring, and Nandi just sat there, staring at him.
Time for the Wets
There were a surprising amount of more aquatic animal exhibits here! From your turtles, to your otters, to your mantaray, there was a good bit of variety.
Both me and Cammy took a whole bunch of pictures of the otters, they're one of his favorites after all! This one was almost gonna get cut, but I decided to put it in cause it made me giggle quite a bit.
Cameron got a really good video of this, but I didn't. One of the otters went full flipping mad and spent seriously a good 5 minutes doing sick flips against the glass. This was taken as he was coming in for another one.
There was a seal in the water and a seal on land in the seal exhibit. Since Cameron already showed his more superior underwater seal photos on his page, I opted to just show off this absolute chad.
There was an indoor touch pond only I went in that had your classic mantarays and small sharks for small loud children to poke. It was pretty loud in there so I took a few pictures and left pretty quick, but not before remembering what mantaray feel like.