While visiting the zoo I went around on my own after the official tour ended. I stopped for a while at the orangutan enclosure. Compared to the chimpanzees the orangutans space looks much smaller and less interesting but I have the impression they are quieter animals than chimps and perhaps the space is large enough for them though I’m sure the zoo would jump at the chance to allocate more space to them if it was possible. One orangutan sat in the tree and it took some coaching from the keeper to get her to come down and eat lunch. Eventually she did come down but it seemed like she was only doing it to poke at the food and get rid of the annoying human.

Yesterday a group of Irish bloggers and photo bloggers were invited to tour Dublin Zoo early in the morning to see the zoo before it opened to the public and while the keepers and handlers were getting the animals up and about for the day and feeding them breakfast.

For the tour the large group of bloggers was broken into 3 smaller groups and the group I was in was lucky enough to see the chimpanzees being brought out and given their morning treat of apples. The photos I took make them look sad as if they were begging for the apples but really it was more like they were demanding their apples, waving at the keeper and stretching out their arms saying “where is my apple, throw it now”.

I know many people dislike zoos but it is obvious that the staff of Dublin Zoo care for the animals and are passionate about conservation both in and in the wild. In some cases the goal is to breed animals in captivity so that stocks can be returned to the wild where they are extinct.  In an ideal world there would be no need to return animals to the wild but until man stops destroying animal habitats  and poaching to feed black market demands well run zoos may prove to be an ark preserving endangered species.

A big thank you to Dublin Zoo and the organisers of the tour, I was delighted to be invited to chat with some great photo bloggers whose blogs I had seen but who I had never met in person before. It was great to see so many old and new faces and I didn’t have enough time to talk to everyone I wanted to. Hopefully there will be more photo tours and walks organised and I’ll get to chat with everyone. I have lots more photos to process and I’ll be uploading more here and to my flickr or pix.ie accounts.