National Zoo Asian Trail Exhibit Now Open

Just in time for a winter wandering, the Asia Trail at the National Zoo is now open. Feel free to gawk at the seven Asian species shivering in the cold:

  • sloth bears
  • fishing cats
  • red pandas
  • a Japanese giant salamander
  • clouded leopards
  • Asian small-clawed otters
  • and giant pandas

No word yet on if the otters get to play with the salamander – I think that would be a short, but tasty play time.

The red panda wasn’t playing so much as pacing when this crowd checked him out last weekend. He looked like a mental ward patient, walking back and forth on a little raised ledge until he spotted a grapefruit. Then he was all about eating the fleshly fruit, a welcomed break to his confinement.

As you can tell, I worry about the larger animals in the zoo. Often they look more insane prisoners than happy-go-lucky exotic species. Yes, they live a long and pampered life, but would you want to live in a zoo?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Married, mortgaged, and soon to be a father, Wayan Vota is in the fast lane to mid-life respectability – until the day his brood finds his intimate journal of global traveling and curses him with the ever-eternal reply “I’m gonna be just like you, Dad!”

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