Tanganyika Wildlife Park

We went for a field trip with our homeschool group today at Tanganyika Wildlife Park. They specialize in rare and endangered animals so it was quite a different experience than a regular zoo. They also encourage supervised interaction with some of the animals so that makes the visit much more personal for everyone. These are the Reticulated Giraffes. This is a White Bengal Tiger. They seemed to be sleeping all day!

This is an Indian Rhino. They almost resemble a very large armadillo since it looks like they have armor on.

This is one of the moms in our group with a Lori on her head. They are Australian Parrots.

This Red Kangaroo is named Vickie. She was hand raised and so is pretty friendly with people (when she wants to be!)

Vickie wasn't sure she wanted to be friendly for awhile so we waited patiently while she ate and had an attitude adjustment!

They are creating a new penguin exhibit for the African Penguins but it isn't finished yet so we had to look in the windows of the building where they are housed for now.

I think one of the highlights of the trip was the Ring-Tailed Lemurs. They ate cranberries out of the kid's hands. They weren't aggressive at all and were very gentle.

It seemed strange to actually be in the pen with the animals but we were able to get first hand knowledge about each animal from the trainers which was an amazing learning experience for all of us.

They had a nursery for the babies that are fairly new still. This one is a Clouded Leopard.

We went back to the Lories and this one liked Hannah's ponytail!

Hannah thought it was not only fun but it felt nice getting a head massage!

They were pretty aggresive and actually drew blood on one of the girls in our group so you had to be careful. For some reason, this did not scare my children at all!

These zebras are Grevy Zebras. They are critically endangered right now.

The Red Ruffed Lemurs are from Madagascar.

This zoo has one of the rarest collections of endangered species in the United States. The tour guide told us that Jack Hanna regularly visits them and will take a couple of their baby Clouded Leopards to travel with him around the United States and then bring them back after about a year. They had just been returned after getting to meet Jay Leno!

This fieldtrip was so much fun and to think they have been near us for the last 27 years and we didn't even know it! In our defense, they had only been open to private tours until this May when they opened to the public. I'm glad we found them and I'm sure they will get some more visits from us soon!