#pdza

[unofficial-sean]

Restless flounders, graceful chimeras, and playful sea lions await you in this short compilation of aquarium footage from PDZA.

[smollockelamora]

That's not entirely true- the real story is much happier! Laerke was rejected by her mother because she had health problems. Her sister, Astra, was raised by their mother. Jebbie and Laerke were put together to help with socialization. Now, Jebbie lives at a wildlife sanctuary with other grizzly bears, and Astra and Laerke have been reunited at another zoo!

Detroit zoo: Bear cubs Jebbie grizzly bear and Laerke polar bear playing

[pacificnorthwestquest]

Port Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

On our way to the next campground we stopped at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium! This lovely little zoo is located in Tacoma and Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) certified. This means they have met requirements to provide the highest levels of animal care and welfare! Unfortunately there are many organizations that claim to be non-profit or mistreat their animals (things like holding tiger or lion cubs is never okay!) but the AZA has a great website that you can check so you can support the animals and institutions that truly care for them.

Our first visits were to some very sleepy kitties- a clouded leopard and Amur tiger! We also were treated to some polar bear antics. The two bears are sisters and only about 8-10 months old. They had quite the wrestling/swimming match over a toy and it was so fun to watch! The zoo also has two aquariums, one closed for renovations, but we still got to see some hammerhead sharks, jellyfish, and many other creatures, including some divers cleaning the tank. There were also many aquatic mammals, harbor seals, sea lions, walruses and my favorite sea otters!

One of our favorite exhibits was that of the Red Wolves! PDZA is part of an awesome program to help breed and reintroduce this endangered species to their natural habitats. The red wolf once lived throughout the most of the eastern continental United States but was hunted to the point of near extinction. When the zoo based breeding program began in the 1980's there were only 14 wolves left in the wild. These beautiful creatures were so fun to watch, one pair are sisters and one a mating pair. We listened to a wonderful presentation from a keeper as he threw meatballs to the sister wolves over a fence as he explained since the goal is eventual reintroduction to the wild the zoo has to work hard to limit human contact so these wolves would one day be able to hunt and care for themselves. The program has had great success and has a secondary location off site where there is a larger pack of wolves who hopefully will be able to be released to parts of North Carolina, the only location with wild red wolves today!

On our way out we were treated to a couple of surprises- some wild harbor seals in the marina and slides instead of stairs!

-Jess

[vintage-tech]

Yesterday’s score at, of all places, a Ben Franklin Crafts which to my surprise sells vintage and antique postcards. This is a card showing Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, from the late 1960s to early 1970s, and since it’s a wonderful local place and contains my side-hustle I had to have this card. It’s mounted in a floating frame so the back can still be read (as you see in the second photo).

Point of interest: The card calls the aquarium “new” -- it was built in 1963, replacing an aquarium built in 1936 a few miles away -- but today we call that dome in the left-center “the old aquarium” because a new one was built in 2018. The old aquarium is still standing but closed and used for storage... and I’ve been in it earlier this year (retrieving bags of Dippin’ Dots and boxes of Krazy Kritters drinks); it’s pretty much trapped in time and looks the way you’d expect a damp aquarium building that’s been abandoned for two years to look, some decay and entropy are taking hold, and I wish I had taken some photos while in there but the lighting is spotty.

[urbananglerjournal]

Okay sooo only two good shots from our staycation to the zoo. #pdza #pointdefiancezooandaquarium #zoo #tacoma #marrakech (at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRdswTRM2tT/?utm_medium=tumblr

[tintenfischie]

One of the few zoos in the US that has walruses is Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, WA. There have been a few walruses there over the years, the most famous being the late E.T., whose video demonstrating walrus vocalizations has about 5.8 million views as of now:

He weighed over 3,400lbs and like most captive walruses, was rescued as an orphaned calf, in this case from Alaska. PDZA has also housed younger male walruses, Mitik and Pakak (aka, The Walrus Boys) until they were mature enough to be moved to another facility to hopefully mate with lady walruses.

Currently, there are two half-siblings, Balzak and Lakina, originally from Aquarium du Québec. True to their place of origin, these walruses are in fact bilingual!

people not realizing the extreme rarity of captive walruses is k i l l i n g me dear god. Just any old zoo does not have them! They are hard to transport, hard to care for, and hardly ever successfully breed in captivity so zoos only get them when an injured or orphaned individual gets picked up by a rescue in the arctic and is deemed unreleasable. That’s not a frequent occurrence! This isn’t a tiger king situation with backyard breeders all over the place!

[musings-of-an-introvert]

Went to Point-Defiance Zoo & Aquarium today! I’ve never been! It was a blast 😊

[leslieloba]

Zoo sketches.

[jedimasterhyladae]

[watching-constellations]

Yeah, PDZA is rough when it comes to sitting areas. A lot of people complain about that particular issue, but I'm not sure many people actually use the box. Hell, I was in that zoo every single day during high school, and I interned there for a little bit, and I didn't even know there WAS a box! I wish it was better advertised. It's absolutely a good idea to make use of the box so they know there's a problem, because the people at PDZA definitely care a lot about their guests and their animals, but the staff work pretty hard and likely forget about guest feedback before they can report it.

(Also, I hope you got a chance to say hi to the lemurs and siamangs— I miss those noisy bastards. And the tapirs, but that's just because they're funny-looking. And if the nutso wild great blue herons are still trying to nest in the tiger exhibit, I hope you gave them at least a little bit of side-eye. I miss my zoo.)

Something else I’ve realized I need to add to the accessibility spreadsheet: how to give facilities feedback on accessibility issues.

I met a couple friends at the Point Defiance Zoo yesterday and woof, the lack of benches at a zoo with big hills had me struggling. On top of my own mobility issues, I was lugging a heavy camera with multiple lenses I wanted to occasionally sit down and swap out, and there was just absolutely nowhere to do so for multiple exhibits. Even the indoor polar bear viewing didn’t have places to sit!

I mentioned it to someone in the zoo logo when I finally gave up and sat on the ground, and the comment was well, there’s a complaint box on the way out. It didn’t feel the most empathetic at the time but made me realize it’s probably something worth making use of.

[unofficial-sean]

Platichthys stellatus

[whatthehellfatboy]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stephanie, Bolt, and Oliver (@the_kitties_creamsicle)

This little guy was so stinking cute, he kept putting a shell in the tire and rolling it around. #pdza #pointdefiancezoo #seaotters #otters #zoo #pnw

[emxadventures-blog]

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium Tour 2020

[urbananglerjournal]

We did a little staycation, my wife took me to the zoo. One of my best shots from the day. #pdz #pdza #pointdefiancezooandaquarium #tacoma #staycation #zoo (at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRdroaqsK1k/?utm_medium=tumblr

[nichx]

Here are a few more shots from the aquarium. The hammerheads in the big tank were definitely my favorites. . . . . #vsco #vscocam #vscox #vscoxselects #pdza #aquarium #pacificseasaquarium #tacoma #pnw #pnwonderland https://www.instagram.com/p/BnuHQR9FL64/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pp19ip03di0j

[leslieloba]

Morning sketches at @ptdefiancezoo. #adrawingaday2019 #pdza #zoosketching #pencildrawing #lifedrawing (at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxIlIiPFZmo/?igshid=1ml4e2ptto3fo