#stl zoo

[danny-pino-group-therapy]

Animals Aglow lantern festival at STL Zoo in Forest Park, St. Louis, MO.

[theblackknightofworcestershire]

cannot BELIEVE I missed the one-year anniversary of Ben's daring double escape.

On February 7th, 2023, our noble and brave Andean bear literally clawed his way out of his cage and roamed free through the zoo for an hour and a half before being tranquilized and returned to his enclosure. Iconic. Stunning.

Just a few weeks later, on February 23rd, our clever prince escaped AGAIN, overcoming the new added security measures, and was free in the zoo for nearly an hour.

Yes

YES

The bear is out

I love you, Ben.

My only note is PLEASE make sure your next escape is when I'm at the zoo. Thanks.

[starbirdsonthearch]

Woohoo Zoo.

[mgenchanted]

[icleanedthisplate]

Turkey Club w/Fries. River Camp Café (Zoo). St. Louis, Missouri. 5.6.2023.

NOTE TO SELF: Cold Subway bacon, one slice of deli meat.

Currently ranked last of seven May meals.

[skyf0ckz]

just spent the day at the zoo! It was hot as hell but fun!

[falst]

salmon tastes weird

[lycanthology]

omg i know her

[ratkeypublications]

Drawn from some photos I took back in April at the St. Louis Zoo.

[sparrow-in-the-field]

The Story behind Bobby's Aves

For anyone reading The Cormant, in the last AN I mentioned I'd share the story of Jack, the real life double crested cormorant that inspired the one I'm writing as Bobby's Aves in the fic.

Now that I have officially moved back to the East Coast, I feel like I can share that for the past handful of years, I was living in St Louis. I'm actually going to include some real places from the STL area in the fic; it's kind of my love letter to the city because I love it and know I'm gonna miss living there.

One of the best parts of St Louis is that they have an amazing zoo that is free to the public (it's accredited and they do a lot of great conservation work; it's free due to city taxes, not sketchy reasons lol). Seriously, if you're ever in STL you have to go.

Anyway, the zoo has a flight cage that was initially built for the 1904 World's fair. That flight cage has been remodeled as the Cypress Swamp and now serves as a home to rescued native wild birds that cannot safely be released back into the wild. You can see photos and read more about it here.

Jack is one of those birds. He's a feisty double crested cormorant that is missing most of one of his wings.

I have two personal stories of encountering Jack that made me love him.

The Cypress Swamp has a boardwalk that you walk through with no barriers between the people and the habitat. For the most part the birds keep to the water and trees or areas that aren't directly in the path, but they can technically be on the path if they want to be. That is what happened the first time I met Jack.

My wife and I were on the boardwalk, probably admiring some of the ducks, and when I turned back to continue walking down the path, the cormorant was right in the middle of it.

I'd seen cormorants plenty of times in the wild, but I'd never been that close to one before. They're quite intimidating birds, but in a beautiful/breathtaking way! I was rather taken with him, and also quite amused that he refused to budge (it wasn't like he expected food or anything from us, he just wanted to Be There and wasn't gonna let anyone stop him). He stepped closer a couple times, and I'm always on the cautious side of being respectful of wildlife, so I was a bit frozen with what to do. I think we ended up just kind of waiting, and then another family walked by first, and we realized we could pass with bothering him or him bothering us. But I was just so taken with how defiant he was in his place.

The second time was when I learned his name. There was a keeper at one of the entrances/exits, and there was a hold up to leave the flight cage because of Jack. He was trying to sneak into the crowd to escape the flight cage, and the zookeeper was essentially having to corral him away from the door. She was using the opportunity to tell the stalled families about Jack and double crested cormorants.

My wife asked her "is your job in the flight cage to make sure Jack doesn't escape?" and she responded "technically no but it feels like about 80% of it." She also told us that they'd recently gotten a female cormorant resident and Jack was being a bad influence and teaching her how to try to escape as well lol.

So yeah, that's the story of Jack. The initial story of The Cormant was inspired by the song I linked in the first chapter of the fic, but as I started creating the actual character of Bobby's Aves, after meeting Jack twice, I knew I had to write him in it. He's just so bold and feisty and beautiful, it felt right for him to be a part of Bobby's soul.

[theblackknightofworcestershire]

Incredible job, Ben. I am so proud of you.

[deadlifts-and-deadlines]

We went to the STL zoo yesterday and Ender had the absolute best day of his life. I might have too, tbh. It was so fun!

I’m really proud of how well he did with such a big day that he had no idea was coming, bc we surprised him with the trip. He played 40 minutes of nonstop soccer before we left - because some parents like to sign their kids up for team sports and then never respond to any of the messages or attend any practices or games so then the three kids who do participate don’t get any sort of break and we have to recruit older and younger siblings for alternates so we have enough kids to play 🫠 - and then it was about 90 minutes to STL plus another hour to get off 64 and finding street parking in forest park and walk to the zoo - plus the 4ish miles we walked at the zoo, then the long walk back to the car after. He was tired AF on the drive home but was more than happy to play his switch and we stopped for pizza halfway home. So happy the rain held off and that we got home before the storms and tornadoes hit!

[hangmanbradshaw]

I have to go to St. Louis for work in 3 weeks. All my American friends have never been, but I am told it has bbq? I mean I know you are not in St. Louis, but you are also closer than ppl in Minnesota or Virginia, so I thought I would ask if you have heard if there is anything near there?

Hi friend! I've been to STL manyyyyyy times, grew up about 2 hours away and have a ton of friends there so here are my humble opinions :) So KC bbq is obvi better, but STL does have their own version of BBQ that's decent. Pappy's & Salt & Smoke are popular ones. STL is really known for their T-Ravs (toasted ravioli). I'd recommend that. They have a specific kind of pizza too at Imo's, but I think it's disgusting so don't recommend. There's a place called Fitz's Delmar I love. They make their own root beer. If the Cardinals are playing, 100% you should go down to Busch Stadium and go to a game. Ballpark Village itself is so fun (Salt & Smoke has a location there too- they do stl bbq). The Zoo is amazing (and free). You can tour Anheuser Busch or to do the typical Arch experience.

[gobbie-boom]

turali!runa would probably get a voiceclaim change too, and i was thinking salma hayek, but i think ive seen a LOT of other wol faceclaims w her. which doesnt really matter, i just think its funny

her faceclaim is this jaguar from the stl zoo :)

[bellhopping]

Did you know?

Snake with whiskers

(Tentacled Snake - STL Zoo)

interesting, interesting! don't know what this thing's deal is but it seems chill as hell. love its sillyass wiskers

[savageboar]

man. little joe, a gorilla at the stl zoo, died today :(