Burger's Zoo

If you know me well, you also know about my LOVE for zoos!  I try to visit a zoo or aquarium any time that the opportunity presents.  To date, my favorite one has been in Fort Worth Texas (even though the baboons now own my bracelet!) 

The Netherlands has some of the world's top rated zoos and we took advantage of now living about 25 minutes away from one!  We visited the Burger's Zoo during their 100 year anniversary celebration. What an amazing place! www.burgerszoo.com   It was a fantastic day full of walking, and experiences animals up close.  The zoo tries very hard to make the animals feel as comfortable as possible.   They co-habitate often and in the safari portion of the park we saw  rhinos,  giraffes,  gazelles,  and zebra all living together in one big open area. 

Several portions of the zoo were climate controlled and indoors (although at times you could not tell).  The indoor portions included the desert, ocean, and the rainforest.  The Ocean is exactly what you think, a full fledged aquarium inside of the zoo! Sharks, rays, puffer fish, eels, and of course quite a few Dory's and Nemo's were sprinkled throughout!  There was even an amazing tunnel that you got to navigate through. The desert had an adventure cave, complete with stalagmites and stalactites, gems, hidden passageways, and even old mining carts.  The rainforest was complete with lush flora, waterfalls, and a wide variety of rainforest animals.

My most favorite portion of the entire zoo came at the end...seeing the lowland gorillas.  It was truly amazing.  I counted at least 12 full grown gorillas in the yard, along with three babies!  One of the momma gorillas surprised zoo staff on June 13th, when she delivered twins overnight.  It was amazing to watch the gorillas interact with each other and even the crowd watching.  At one point, one of males came over and banged on the glass.  Another time, one was making faces at Roman watching nearby.  

I was truly amazed at all of the baby animals within the zoo.  We saw baby warthogs, gorillas, giraffes, big horned sheep, and so much more!