As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, I went to the Denver Zoo Sunday afternoon to take a few photos and enjoy the sun and relatively warm 53 degree temperatures before the next round of snow and cold arrives. Of all the animals at the zoo, the lions are the most cooperative. Tobias, seen in the photograph on the left, and head of one of the zoo's two lion prides, always looks me in the eye when I take his photograph. He has fathered three cubs since he arrived at the zoo, for which I am eternally grateful, although I wish he would get busy and produce a few more, since cubs obviously make the best subjects, and the cuteness soon disappears as they get older.
And as Exhibit A, I present a photograph of Tatu, taken not too long after he was born in 2019, no doubt named after that character from Fantasy Island, a television show from the late 1970s. Now that he is older, Tatu looks just like any other lion. Even the twin lion cubs born back in April of 2020 don't look like cubs anymore. To add insult to injury, thanks to Covid-19 restrictions, I was not able to photograph those twins while they were at their cutest, which I feel is why the zoo should make the birth of two new lion cubs a top priority.
As I mentioned above, the Denver Zoo has two African lion prides - the family pride that includes Tobias and Tatu, and four bachelor lions who alternate occupying Predator Ridge, the large lion compound. When one of the prides occupies that main compound, the other winds up in smaller quarters, which is where I took the photograph on the left of one of those four bachelor lions, no doubt wondering how the hell he ever wound up there. If only the zoo would take my advice and start a "Lion Encounter," the animals in this small enclosure would no doubt perk up quite a bit. Nothing like visitors trying to pet them to get those animal juices flowing.
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