Animal Crackers

In April over Spring Break, we decided to have a "staycation."  (If that phrase is getting overused or trite, I apologize, but nevertheless, that's what it was.)  We originally wanted to take the kids to Paris or to EuroDisney (which they don't even know exists yet, so shhhhhhh), but we decided there were still several things to do around here in the Southern region that we hadn't experienced yet.  One of those things was the Frejus Zoo, which is only about 45 minutes from our house.  Distance wise, it's closer to travel to Frejus from our villa in France than it is to drive to Hogle Zoo from our house in Utah. But...the experience at this particular zoo in France could not be more different than a trip to Hogle Zoo.  I can't really say if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  There were things about this zoo that I really liked, but I won't lie: I sort of felt sorry for the animals, and that usually isn't like me.  I'm more pragmatic and generally less emotional than that when it comes to animals.  (No, I am not and will never be a vegetarian.) 

Where zoos in the US are generally sprawling, shady affairs with large trees, natural-looking habitats, and have paved walking trails with designated picnic areas, this one was a little dusty and desolate.  Also, it seemed like the animals were left to sort of fend for themselves, many of them basically fenced in with plain old chainlink fences.  It feels less like a zoo and more like a retirement home where owners of exotic pets can just leave their donations at the gate with a leash and a note. In most zoos, you can't walk past an exhibit without seeing zoo keepers or workers everywhere, painstakingly washing down the cages, feeding the animals their prescribed diet, and generally taking care of them.  Here, we didn't see a single employee except the woman who took our money at the entrance. (We are assuming she also runs the snack bar.)  It was eerie and a little disconcerting.  The theme of the zoo seemed to be: "We assume you are reasonably intelligent and responsible.  If you are stupid enough to stick your fingers in the cages and get bitten by our animals, then you deserve it."  Okay, fair enough.

When we paid our money to enter the zoo, the gate attendant asked if we wanted to buy "cookies" (les gateaux) to feed the animals.  We only paused for a second for it to translate/register in our brains, thinking, "What?  We're ALLOWED to feed the animals?? And they seriously can eat COOKIES???"  The woman told us we could feed all the mammals, including the buffalo, elephants, goats, hippos, monkeys, kangaroos, zebras, etc., so we decided to buy a 1-kilo bag for 3 Euros.  Can you believe this is not regulated or monitored AT ALL?  That would never happen in the US.  This was not the first time I was surprised that some French version of PETA wasn't throwing a fit about how these animals were living at this zoo.  However, it didn't stop us.  If anything, it only made the zoo questionable in the minds of the parents, but it made the zoo SUPER-DUPER AWESOME in the minds of our kids. Here they are in the act of feeding some of the animals. See the chain link fence bulging with the weight of all the goats pressing against it:

Watch those fingers, Maisy!!

I cannot emphasize how much the animals loved these cookies.  They seriously couldn't get enough. (My kids ate some and liked them too.) And the kids were having a ball, just laughing hysterically at how the animals were clamoring over one another to eat these little treats.  At first I was so worried the kids would get bitten or that this feeding frenzy wasn't safe, but I got over that pretty quickly.

When we encountered an especially greedy little elephant, we realized one bag would never be enough. (Also, we burned through the first bag of cookies in about 10 minutes flat.)

So in typical "American" fashion, we went back to the gate entrance and stocked up. Yes, Jason decided to buy FOUR more bags.  The lady just stared at him initially, trying to determine if she had understood his halting French, but he assured her he wanted FOUR more bags. Of animal cracker cookies. To feed the zoo animals. Yes, I know it sounds crazy. "Nous trouvons l'elephant," he simply explained (We found the elephant.).  She just nodded and took his money, probably glad that she didn't need to open the snackbar for another 45 mins.




Then we had an interesting experience.  As we were tossing cookies to this elephant, we were fascinated by the incredible dexterity of its trunk.  We thought for sure that the elephant's big trunk would not be able to grab these thin small cookies off the ground, but it had NO problem grabbing them one at a time, pretty as you please, and transferring them to its mouth. When the elephant wanted more, it would lift up its trunk and open its mouth, which we understood as a pretty obvious signal because we have been parents of three toddlers.

Trust me, we fed this elephant plenty of cookies, but we were finally ready to move on.  So when it showed us its mouth this last time, we ignored it.  Are you ready for this?  As we waved our farewells, it reached down in the dirt with its trunk as we watched intently, thinking it was trying to reach for some grass or some small cookie piece.  But instead, it threw a big trunkful of DIRT at us as if to say "If you're not going to feed me, then get out of here!"  We even got it on video.  It's worth watching:

That's gratitude for you!  As it reached down to throw more dirt, we got out of there in a hurry!