Yeah, otters are pretty cool
Tag Archives: Red River Zoo – Fargo
Migration game
For one of the education events, the zoo ran a “migration event”. In this event, the kids were asked to pretend to be birds who had to migrate across a continent. There were oases scattered around that birds would stop at to rest, just like in the real world. The kids had to leap from oasis to oasis to get across the field.
The interesting bit was that once the kids did that, disasters effected the environment. A forest fire would take out one. Maybe a nearby city would demolish another. Then the kid-birds would have to migrate back.
This was a way to show, physically, how small human-caused changes can make migration difficult to impossible for some species.
Otter
Some otters wear invisible top hats and monocles.
Cow
This is basically like you eating one chocolate chip.
Light bulbs
One of the things I like about zoos is how the good ones blend education with entertainment and reach people who would not otherwise be exposed to information. In this case, as part of education around climate change, children are shown incandescent, compact fluorescent, and LED light bulbs. Energy efficiency is explained and kids are asked to guess which bulb would be least efficient and, therefore, hotter.
The kids seemed to be better guessers than the adults.
Duck
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to … never mind.
American Robin
This robin feels superior to television science fiction writers because he understands the first law of thermodynamics.
Stick Insect
If you volunteer at the zoo (or get an internship), you might get to hold a bug* too.
* Technically, a stick insect is not a bug because it doesn’t suck. It chews instead.
Prairie Dog performing Midsummer Night’s Dream
I will discharge it in either your straw-colour
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your
perfect yellow.
Grackle
Grackle starting to think this isn’t St. Louis after all.
Russian Squirrel
Squirrel pondering his investment options.
Prairie Dog performing Comedy of Errors
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain’d, thou undishonoured.
Cow
Some cows aren’t tall enough to lick the food out of people’s hands.
Some cows have developed workarounds.
Pallas Cat
One of these guard cats only tells lies. The other only tells lies as well.
Basically, cats don’t care about your petty human concept of “truth”.
Prairie Dog performing Timon of Athens
“Thou wilt be throng’d to shortly.”
Porcupine
Porcupine that just downloaded the Shazam app and is realizing that it is of no use whatsoever in identifying the plaintful music that he hears in his dreams, echoing strains of melody like tendrils holding his mind hostage until the wee hours of the morning yawn and spread wide to welcome the day.
Pallas Cat
Pallas cat kittens are not all equally brave.
Dead Tree
Some people are taking civil war erasure a bit too far.
Otter
This otter couldn’t sleep until he finished fact-checking “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac
Now here you go again, you say
You want your freedom
You want your freedom
[True. Freedom is something all otters want]
Well who am I to keep you down
It’s only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
Play the way you feel it
[True. Play is very important and should not be stopped by anyone]
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Of your loneliness
[False. Loneliness has no sound]
Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost
[False. Despite the accuracy of one’s memory, one’s heartbeat cannot cause insanity.]
Thunder only happens when it’s raining
[False. Thunder happens when there is lighting. Lightning does not require rain.]
Players only love you when they’re playing
[False. While common, there have documented evidence of love regardless of the game being played]
Say women they will come and they will go
[True. In the grand fullness of time, we will all go]
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll know
[False. You will know that you are wet. Knowing whether one is clean requires more than mere rain]
Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself, it’s only me
I keep my visions to myself, it’s only me
[False. Visions have been shared in many of Fleetwood Mac’s songs ]
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and,
Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
[Possibly true. Selling dreams is possible, though they are usually converted into other forms first, such as novels, plays, or movies.]
Dreams of loneliness,
[Possibly true, but unlikely to sell at a reasonably high price]
(Chorus repeats)
Bunnies
Though they passed the first screen test, they failed at the howling.