Salt Lake City Animals

First trip in SLC was to the zoo. We were woken bright and early by train horns and traffic that sounded like it was mere metres from us… turns out the KOA campground (or "Kampground" as they would say) had put all the tent sites down the noisiest boundary. Great.

Zoo itself was easily found. While it isn't quite up to the same standard as San Francisco Zoo, it is still a cut ahead of Orana Park and their cats collection is simply amazing. We saw an ocelot, foxes, Black Footed Cat (and kittens),

 

… various reptiles and birds…

… tigers, a bat eared fox, and a wolf!

 

The wolf was really cute, just like a big dog. Unfortunately he was in a very neglected exhibit right out the back of the zoo, and we could only see a single wolf. The whole exhibit just seemed forgotten by the zoo. This is where SF Zoo wins out. SF also had much better landscaping; here a lot of the critters were in painted concrete rooms, and the pathways were basically just access roads, not well landscaped winding paths like at SF.

Enough complaining; they also had a baby giraffe!

It was very cute, still taller than me and apparently growing an inch a day!

They also had a lynx, snow leopard & cub, and 3 tiger cubs & mother.

 

Later in the day the Black Footed Cat kittens had woken up and were washing themselves…

 

The Sand Cat had worn itself out and was resting, so I was finally able to get a crisp shot of it.

 

They also had Rattle Snakes… including a Diamond Back Rattlesnake which is only the largest snake found in the US. It was fascinating/gruesome to watch.

   

So that was the zoo. On the way home we went shopping for Angela, she has a shiny new laptop now :-) Next up… the aquarium.