Belize Zoo and Cave Tubing

Tuesday was our second day of exploring the mainland. The Hubby, Dave and I took the water taxi in to Belize City and then met up with Jason again to go to the Belize Zoo and cave tubing. The zoo was our first stop.

The Belize Zoo is unique in that all of the animals are native to Belize, and are not fit to live in the wild – they’ve either been injured or abandoned or raised in captivity. For example, some people think that ocelet kitties are cute and fun pets…and then the kitties turn into big cats and become more than they can handle. So it’s part refuge/part educational facility. The signs for the animals are all hand-painted and deliver messages to the public about the animals. They work to dispel myths (such as harpy eagles do NOT eat human babies) and raise awareness about the environment and human-wildlife-environment interactions.

The cages provided a photography challenge: the mesh was very large, so unless the animals were farther away I couldn’t do that cool depth of field trick to blur out the cage. The animal environments were also very much geared to the animals – lot of hidey places out the gaze of prying tourist eyes and their annoying cameras. But we managed to find a few of them.

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The paths between animal enclosures were either fine gravel or concrete. All of the enclosures were separated by forest brush and trees. Continue reading “Belize Zoo and Cave Tubing”

Belize Zoo and Cave Tubing
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