Howdy y'all! I'm probably a bit of an outlier here because I don't work with animals in any capacity as a career or volunteer work. My interest stems from a girlhood spent enveloped in animal encyclopedias, eagerly shouting every breed of dog I'd spot, spouting facts about sharks/dinosaurs at any opportunity, and all around thriving as your friendly neighborhood "weird horse girl". I may no longer pretend to graze grass on the playground but my adoration of animals/pets has stayed and expanded in tolerably quirky ways. These days I'm just a casual animal nerd, and my friends send me any post they find of the animals I am known for loving, from alligators to sharks to beavers to wombats and above all: bunnies. I have two rabbits that led me to fall deeply in love with domestic rabbits and their welfare; I spend far too much time scrolling through The Pipsqueakery and other small mammal rescues on Instagram haha! Stumbled across this website and in a moment of nostalgia for early 2000's web forums (who hasn't wallowed in preteen nostalgia while trapped at home this year) I decided to join! Hoping to creep on y'all's professional experiences working with animals and geek out over your lives. Toodaloo~
Welcome! Don't worry, although there are a few zookeepers and volunteers among us, most of us don't work with animals at all, so you aren't an outlier like you may believe.
Welcome to Zoochat. What part of Texas are you from? Quite a few good zoos around of which some are not covered at all.
North Texas! There's the Fort Worth Zoo and Dallas Zoo, obvs big zoos that I've loved my whole life - but ya know an underrated zoo down here? The Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. It's an AZA accredited zoo that is so SO cute - but I had never heard of it before we just happened upon it while driving through Waco?? It's lovely, never crowded, only been a few times but it's really a hidden gem in my opinion! Any zoos I'm missing out on? Have you been to any of these three?