Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium - Arizona

Two days after Christmas, we paid a visit to the Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium. This place was so fun! They had a lot of animals, all of which we were able to get quite close to. We arrived in the morning not long after they opened with the expectation of only spending two or three hours there. Instead we ended up staying for most of the day in order to see it all.  

I loved all the palm trees we saw in Arizona. You don't see many of those in New York or Idaho. 

Our first stop after buying our tickets was the petting zoo. We got to pet a tortoise...

...and deer! I was SO excited when I realized we got to pet the deer. I love deer, and have always wanted to touch one. Life dream accomplished. Haha! The deer were in a pen with some goats and an alpaca or two. I'm used to goats, so I petted a couple and then moved on. The alpaca had a staring match with Tom, and Tom won. We had to keep our paper maps out of sight and watch out because all the animals were quite forward and would try to eat anything we held or wore. A deer started nibbling on the bottom of my coat and one tried to eat the bottom of Kris' coat after chewing on a mouthful of *ahem* poop. It left behind brown smudges on her pretty white coat. ;( We didn't stay long in the pen once they really started to go after us.

Birds aren't usually one of my favorite zoo animals (I grew up with chickens, homing pigeons, and all sorts of wild birds) so I usually skip past their exhibits, but they had some beautiful birds at this zoo. There were a lot of macaws, in a myriad of colors. Some of them were in cages, but others were just "loose" on open branches. They were so big and beautiful. At one point we found a little parrot that talked to us. It was so funny. He said, "How are you?" in his gravely little parrot voice. I've never heard a parrot talk before in person so it was really cool. Brian missed the first couple of times the bird said it, so I repeated his question back to him a few times until he said it again.

Along with the macaws, they had a ton of peacocks, including this beautiful albino one. My cousins had peacocks growing up so they aren't so exotic to me -- especially their noisy cries -- but I still think they are pretty. I'd never seen an albino one before. This fellow had found a comfy perch on the back of the feed truck and was snacking on the seeds in the bucket.

After walking down a path with more birds, including various cranes and pheasants, and a myriad of monkeys, we took a little ride on the zoo's train. 

It wasn't a super long train ride but it was fun. The train passed through some gates into a grassy field that held various horned antelope, water buffalo, deer, cranes, ostriches, and other birds.

After the train ride we wandered around a bit more and then got in line to feed the lory parrots. This was the coolest thing and my favorite experience of the day. The zookeepers opened the doors and we filed in with the crowd. We each picked up a couple apple slices from the bucket in the center of the cage and then walked over to an open spot. We just had to hold our hands out near a parrot and they would fly/jump onto our outstretched hand and proceed to gobble up the apple. It was so cool!

     

Brian was quite the popular guy, at one point he had three parrots on one hand and one on his shoulder. Everyone had such big smiles on their faces.

    

They were the cutest little birds. I'm not really a bird person, but if we ever have to get a bird for some reason, I wouldn't mind one of these.

Things got a little crazy when the birds started landing on our heads. One such bird decided that he wanted some of the apple I was holding and started climbing down the side of my head by holding onto my hair. Not the most comfortable experience, and he soon realized his plan wasn't working and flew away.

    

The zookeepers have the event timed exactly so that they can usher everyone out before the birds start pooping from their meal. I think one bird got Tom's shoe and another one tried to get Brian, luckily his aim wasn't that great and it ended up landing right between Brian's feet. At that point they were herding us out.

Here is a short video of everyone feeding the parrots.

Next we visited the kangaroos in their little enclosure. We walked through the gate into their little area. The only thing that separated us on the path from these furry guys was a single, loosely-hung rope strung between some short fence posts.

We were excited to see that the zoo had some big cats. They had a couple jaguars, but they were sleeping and not very easy to see. We did get to see a couple leopards stalking around in the back of their cage. The favorite had to be the white tiger though. It was beautiful and so big. He was walking around near the front of his cage, which was only two or three feet back from the log fence we were standing up against. It wouldn't have been that far of a reach at all to stick your hand in the cage. Like I said, the animals were all super close to us. Finally this guy settled down in the corner.

At one point we walked through the amphibian building. These frogs were sitting so still that the only way to tell that they were alive and real was the tiny, quick puffing motions of their throats.

The albino alligator was really cool.

They even had a snapping turtle. The texture and color of his skin and shell make it seem like he was made out of wood. They had a lot of other snakes, lizards, frogs, and turtles, but these were the highlights.

We looked at their new rhinoceros for a little bit, but he was penned off in the back of his cage so we could only see the top of his back and occasionally his head when he lifted it up. He was stomping around and pawing at the ground behind his wooden fence.

We took a break to eat some lunch and then continued on. We headed toward the giraffe feeding area, but had a few stops along the way. This picture (not zoomed in) shows you how close we were to the animal pens. We were standing just on the other side of that bush

I love camels. They're just so fun to look at. I've always wanted to ride a camel. 

I have never seen a live warthog before and was shocked by just how ugly this one was. Later we got to see some meerkats. They always look so comical to me for some reason. 

 

One of the pens next to the meerkats held a few porcupines. I'm always surprised by their size when I see them. It seemed a little risky to have suck prickly animals so close to visitors, but at the same time I loved how close we were because we got a good view.

Giraffes are always my favorite zoo animal. I was excited when I learned that we could feed them. This guy was in a pen all by himself. He was so cool. We were so close to him that we got to feed him and pet him.

Once I got his attention with the small handful of food I held, he came over and stuck his tongue right out at me. It was so long and grayish in color. He curled the end of his tongue up, turning his tongue into a cup and I just dropped the food right on it. He quickly pulled his tongue back inside his mouth and started chewing the pellets. It was so fun and I was so giddy that I laughed. The feeding platform was quite crowded, so I only got a chance to feed him the one time. I could have stayed there all day and fed and watched him.

Further on, we found a second pen of giraffes. This one holding about four of five animals. I walked up the platform with Brian to watch the feeding and get some more pictures. I didn't get a chance to feed or pet these ones, but it was still fun just watching them.

Oliver was so excited to show us "Duma." We didn't know what he was talking about until Sean explained that Oliver watched a show about a cheetah named Duma. At one point while we were watching him, he stood up and started alertly at someone or something on the other side of his pen. I don't know what set him off, but it was cool to see him pace around a bit before just laying down again. 

Brian and I love a good zoo visit, but this time was especially fun because we got to do it with family, especially the kids. Everything is more fun and exciting with kids. Oliver was there, getting excited about things and he kept running up to us and saying, "Hey guys, look over here!" It was awesome. At one point he walked up to Layne and but his arm around the back of Layne's leg and said "Let's go buddy." It was hilarious and so cute. 

And we can't forget little Faye. She is such a sweet, darling baby. I had a lot of fun holding her and playing with her throughout our visit.

   

Again, we had such beautiful weather. It was nice to be outside and enjoy the sunshine.

This blog post would be four times as long if I posted a picture of everything we saw, which I really wanted to do. I combined clips I captured throughout our visit into this video so you could see more of our visit. It doesn't have everything we saw, but has a few things I didn't include above.

We wandered into the aquarium section after we finished with the zoo portion. This was pretty cool as well. They had a lot more tanks than I was expecting and some really unique fish.

I never dreamed I'd get to ever touch a stingray, but now I've done it twice. (Sea World sting rays.) 

It was hard to get any good pictures of the fish with all the glass, reflections, and dim lighting. I did put together another video of the clips I captured at the aquarium so enjoy!