Northwest Trek

Dawn and Rich had to work yesterday, so I volunteered to take Santi, their exchange student from Spain, to Northwest Trek, figuring this would be his only chance to see native Northwest animals. As I’ve noted before, I’m decidedly ambivalent about zoos, though Northwest Trek is one of my favorites because the herbivores, at least, are allowed to roam freely.

Ironically, my favorite pictures from the day all come from the caged animals. This isn’t nearly as good of an otter shot as I’ve gotten before, even at NW Trek, but what can I say. I think I love river otter even more than wolves.

NW Trek River Otter

The animal that really stole my heart, though, was this juvenile Fisher who fascinated me with his alertness,

Juvenile Fisher

resourcefulness,

juvenile Fisher

and all-around cuteness.

Juvenile Fisher

Good thing I enjoyed these two so much, because I had terrible luck getting photos on the Tram. Usually you see the animals at a distance, but they were so close yesterday that I couldn’t get many of them in the picture frame and had to settle for head shots.

Buck

I’m sure that passengers who had point-and-shoot cameras ended up with much better shots than I did. I would have needed a wide-angle lens to have gotten good shots because the animals were so close to the tram.