Fresno Chaffee Zoo

When Henry was very young, we had a family membership for the Phoenix Zoo and we would visit every week. We did this for a good couple of years. It was part of our routine. He was only 3 or 4 years old and he walked for miles around the zoo in his cute OshKosh short overalls each week, learning about different animals. Often it was the ground squirrels that roamed freely around the park that captured his interest as they would come right up to his feet, but we especially enjoyed the orangutans as they were Malaysian, just like Henry. Every visit was different and presented a new thrill- an unexpected roar, an especially big animal poop, an extraordinary interaction.

We have always enjoyed zoos. 

​Fresno Chaffee Zoo was brilliant!

At the center of the zoo was a huge open 13 acre savannah complete with watering hole and right there,  snuggling up to his Mum, was a baby white rhinoceros. Wow!

​We stayed for ages watching the baby antics as it pottered about. We chatted about poaching for rhinoceros horn and loss of habitat for the rhinos and were interested to read that the white rhinoceros as a species is listed as 'Near Threatened' by the IUCN. We thought it was much more endangered.

The baby rhino was called Bomani, pronounced Bow-Muh-Nee, which means great warrior in Swahili. The white rhinoceros is the second largest land animal, after the elephant, and we learned that a herd of rhinoceroses is called a 'crash?' Isn't that fabulous?

As always, there was something new to learn at the zoo.

​The baby rhino was our unexpected delight of the day.