Wednesday 4 June 2008

Howletts Zoo

My daughter (who's old enough to know better) asked me to take her to nearby Howletts wildlife park. The park (OK, zoo) specialises in breeding endangered species, like the Sumatran Tiger, Black Rhino and Gorillas, and has had considerable success.

Despite the concrete and the metal bars, the face to face communication with the gorillas is incredible, whether with silver-back males, young mothers or the trouble-making juveniles (one of which had clearly decided it was a born entertainer).

There were a number of young on show, including a gibbon, various monkeys and a baby elephant.


We saw this chap (perhaps an Aspinall?) being friendly with the older elephants.....
... but then he went to the Rhino enclosure to give one of them a good scrape.

Pleasuring a Rhinocerous?
Oh for goodness' sake, that's pathetic!

And now to put my head in a tiger's mouth......

2 comments:

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

LOL @ the rhino! These are great! I really like the tiger, lemur, gibbon, and the baby ellie. Too cute!

Mary said...

I'm still giggling :-) I happen to love zoos, but have never seen anything quite like those rhino shots! Great pictures!