Sarah's mom and dad came to visit from West Virginia for a few days. It was wonderful to see them, and we spent a wonderful day together at the Brevard Zoo.	Sarah and her parents
Click here to see video of our day at the zoo: Lower quality video (0.8mb) Higher quality video (6.0mb)
Entrance to the Brevard Zoo	The Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, is a beautiful zoo. The boardwalk paths thread through lush greenery. The wide variety of animals live in spacious, natural habitats. It was a treat seeing the animals and enjoying the shade of the trees.
The zoo is divided into four sections: Latin America, Austral-Asia, Africa and Native Florida. In Latin America, we saw a variety of monkeys, a jaguar, capybaras, an anteater, tapirs, and Sarah got to see her favorite animals, the llamas.	Sarah watches her favorites, the llamas
Kangaroo and emu in Austral-Asia	Exploring the Austral-Asia section of the zoo, we saw fruit bats, dingos, wallabys, emus, and kangaroos. There was also a free-flight aviary with cockatoos, parrots, kookaburras and cockatiels.
Also in the Austral-Asia aviary, we had the opportunity to feed lorikeets. Armed with cups of nectar, we were besieged by the brightly colored little birds. They sat on our arms, our shoulders and even our heads, squawking and feasting on the nectar. We laughed and took pictures and had a delightful time feeding the lorikeets.	Sarah feeds a flock of lorikeets
David and his lorikeet friends	A lorikeet gets a bird's-eye view atop Sarah's Dad
Sarah feeds a giraffe	The Africa exhibit is the newest habitat in the Brevard Zoo, and it is unique and impressive. An elevated platform allowed us to look out over the entire African savannah. We saw a pair of rhinos wallowing and cooling down in their mud-bath. And the elevated platform allowed us to hand feed giraffes at their level... a real treat! The rhinos wallow
David and the giraffe get tongue-tied
Native Florida animals also had their own zoo habitat. Here we saw crocodiles, alligators, white-tailed deer, a red wolf, a grey fox, a red-tail hawk, a pair of bald eagles and, to my delight, river otters.
River otters are my favorite animal! It was thrilling enough to see the otters, but we also were on hand to observe a feeding session. They were given a PVC pipe with fish in it. They pushed the pipe around and took great pleasure in trying to get their snack out of it. The pair of otters were particularly playful and active and fun to watch.	Click here to see video of the otters in action: Lower quality video (0.8mb) Higher quality video (7.7mb)
I was very impressed with the Brevard Zoo. Our last Florida zoo experience was disappointing, so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised. It was a beautiful zoo with a unique variety of animals and ample, attractive habitats. It was an immensely enjoyable day with Sarah and her parents.
Click here to visit the Brevard Zoo website
Posted: 8/26/04