A Day @ The Berlin Zoo

Before this year, I had never heard of the Berlin zoo, even though it is the most internationally well known zoo in Germany and has the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.  This past April, however, I like many others on YouTube, became familiar with the Berlin zoo because of a crazy lady who jumped into the polar bear enclosure.  Having heard about the crazy lady and the polar bear named Knut she was trying to get close to, this was a zoo I really wanted to see and this morning we set off to spend a day at the zoo…

Knut, if you didn’t already know, is a young polar bear (still technically a cub but now 2 years old) who was rescued by zookeepers when he was rejected by his mother after his birth at the Berlin zoo in 2006.  He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the zoo in more than 30 years, and photos and video of this adorable fluffy white cub spread rapidly through the Internet, creating a phenomenon dubbed “Knutmania.”  Like many others, I saw a few clips of Knut on YouTube when he was just a few months old, but didn’t know which zoo he belonged to until the crazy lady jumped into the enclosure to get close to him!  When we realized we could see Knut in person because we were going to Berlin, we both felt the Berlin zoo was worth a visit, even if he isn’t the cute little white furball he used to be

If you are thinking about visiting the Berlin zoo, my first word of advice would be to print out the map ahead of time (they don’t hand you a paper copy when you enter, but there are a few maps on boards throughout the zoo) and map out your route!  Unless you plan to spend more than five hours at the zoo, you won’t have time to see everything so you need to plan a route to see the animals you don’t want to miss.  We didn’t have access to a printer so we didn’t have a map planned out and ended up getting lost several times, especially while searching for Knut, who isn’t with the other polar bears anymore but lives in a separate enclosure next to the brown bears. 

We started our day at the panda bear enclosure because there was supposed to be a feeding at 11, but we waited for 30 minutes and noone came to do the feeding, so we  headed to the polar bears.  We then visited Knut ,who looked kind of brown and dirty and paced back and forth restlessly as crowds of screaming young children came by shouting and chanting his name.  As an animal lover, I’m torn between thinking zoos are cruel to keep animals caged/enclosed and thinking they are good for educational and preservation reasons.  Seeing Knut pace sort of frantically made me lean towards the cruel idea, and I actually spent more time watching the brown bears because they seemed much more peacful

We stopped for lunch at the cafeteria and I was surprised to find the prices really really reasonable – most plates were only 5 euros!  It’s nice that they don’t gouge you like most food places at family/tourist attractions.  After lunch, we spent some time in the monkey area, where I was fascinated by how human like they behave – it is utterly amazing to watch a baby monkey interact with his or her parents!  Seeing a couple of older, rather bored looking monkeys made me question again whether zoos are a good idea or not, especially since monkeys look at you like they’re trying to tell you how they feel, and one of them looked like he was saying “I’m depressed!”

Our last hour was spent in my favourite area, the petting zoo, and like the time I went to the petting zoo in Strasbourg, I had an indescribablely good time.  This petting zoo was much better, though, because there were more animals and you could buy feed from vending machines for 20 eurocents to give to the goats, donkeys, sheep, and llamas.  While feeding and petting the animals was fun, the highlight of the day was definitely when Paul got attacked by a goose he was trying to take a picture of!  It was such a random incidence and I had no idea what was happening because I was busy feeding a goat.  All of a sudden I heard Paul go “aaahhh!” and I looked over to see a goose quacking and pecking at him to make him jump backwards until he was at a distance the goose liked!  I had to laugh because not long before that a different goose actually rubbed against me like a cat and let me pet her – and I’ve never seen a bird allow you touch them!  I guess the geese just didn’t like Paul