Day Three: Toledo Zoo
delsNow this was unexpected. A show in a zoo. Breakfast was served in the Great Hall in the basement of the Toledo Museum of Science—through the doors, turn right at the huge stuffed yak and head down the stairs. The stage was located between the flamingos (more ludicrously pink than you could imagine and stuck in a cage that they could not possibly fly in) and the aquarium. Lions could be heard roaring querulously from deep in their lair.
I would never go out of my way to visit a zoo but being here with ‘backstage’ access and out of hours seemed like an exciting prospect. A conversation with the first shift zookeepers as to what I should go to see before the gates opened revealed that there were a pair of polar bears with a recently born cub. I decided that I should shelve my reservations about cooping up wild animals and set off though a tunnel under a freeway towards Toledo Zoo’s Arctic Encounter where the polar bears roamed. But all that was to be seen there was a couple of staff clearing out the bear shit and power-washing the white painted rocks to keep them sparkling white for the visitors. The bears were shuttered behind some very secure looking steel doors. No plaintive noises here though, and I fantasised a scene of ursine familial bliss in the fake snow cave. I can’t imagine they were fooled into feeling more at home by a splash of whitewash, but maybe having professionals trying to figure out your every physical need while also doing the best they can to keep you and your newborn as healthy and happy as possible—within the obvious confines—isn’t so bad. It was hard to reconcile their situation with the unseasonal heat in Ohio, but then again northern Europeans flock to the hottest parts of their continent in the summer to bask in the searing Mediterranean sun. Maybe the bears' perception in that respect is that they have lucked in.
I wandered back via the flamingos and downstairs past the stuffed yak to the Great Hall to eat eggs and bagels.