Home delivery service!
The maned wolves are the first to enjoy the tailor-made meals. The food is boldly tossed in by putting an arm through an opening in the observation cabin, and it lands in front of the snouts of Pedro and Toresa. They’re agile and nimble and grab their food on the fly. The sheer delight of it certainly outweighs any nervousness.
Then it’s the turn of the prairie dogs to get their rations. They rise up out of their burrow to grab the grains and fruit thrown over the low wall. Their resemblance to marmots amuses the young assistant keepers.
Plunge into the world of seals and penguins
We go from earth to sea with medical training for seals.
The penguins are playing happily at the edge of the water while the children, enthralled and with outstretched arms, drop little fish into their ravenous beaks. Yohann is becoming increasingly confident and calls out to them. The feeding enclosure is a mass of seething, twisting bodies, and the penguins put on a real ballet performance as the last few fish are tossed into the water. We learn that they are ‘porpoising’.
“The spectacle of the birds is the best!”
After lunch, where Anaëlle juggles the many questions being asked, there’s a stunning spectacle of birds instead of a siesta. Macaws, hawks and owls fly around the place, watched by eager eyes. Parrots and budgies unfurl the colours of their wings, pelicans stop at our feet, and a tawny eagle swoops by to pinch bread from a spectator while a pink flamingo looks at us disdainfully. A series of admiring ‘oohs’ and ‘aaaahs’ rise up from the audience as the birds return to their aviary.
VIP entry into the rhino house
There’s an entirely different kind of enclosure waiting for us now! As privileged guests, we come to the home of Ajang and Maya as they take a break outside. The bars on the enclosure are the size of the children themselves! We make sure we can get through the metal bars – nothing is left to chance when it comes to safety. There’s a huge heated bath for the Indian rhinos to bathe in. We carried out a little test, and on the XXL format scales we were barely a third of their weight!
Amazed all over again, the children warmly thank Anaëlle. They go on to explore the animal park and its 1200 animals without a guide, their heads full of insider knowledge about monkeys, gibbons, pygmy hippos and giraffes. We cross the walkway to the African plain, excitedly run around the Parcabout® nets and enjoy stroking the wallabies.
