The Zoo

Check out our zoo:
http://www.zoobarcelona.com/ZOO_Barcelona/English/English.asp

The virtual zoo area of the website lets you browse the map and learn about the animals: good fun!

We've got annual membership cards (renewed just recently in view of the success!) and we visit the zoo at least once a week, if not more!... it's just like a fun extension to the park and most of our friends are members too. The kids are safe to run around more or less freely and the animals, well, I swear I think some of them actually recognise us when they see us!!!

Liam's all-time favourites are the hippos. Once he got over his initial fear of them (too young to talk at the time, the poor thing would just tense right up, look totally terrified and say "bye-bye hippo, bye-bye hippo" over and over!!!), he's crazy about them now. You can get up really close to them -we've been splashed more than once!

Jaime's got a special talent with the dolphins -he makes this tiny squeeky noise with his fingers on the glass wall of their tank and they come gliding straight over every time!!! Malachy adores them... in fact Malachy seems to love all the underwater attractions: Granny and Grandad had great laughs with him at the penguin exhibit the other day too!

There was talk that the zoo was to be closed down and moved out of the city. Well, just this morning I read the latest news on this in the paper: the final verdict apparently is that the zoo is going to be reduced to about half its current size and will only house land animals. The seallions, dolphins, waterbirds and other water creatures will be taken to a new "Seaworld"-type aqua-centre they're going to build further down the coast on the site of the Barcelona 2004 Cultural Forum. The forecast completion date is 2009. Greenpeace are against it as they say that, although the animals in captivity would be better housed there than they currently are at the zoo, the coastline and existing fauna would be seriously damaged. There has been so much different talk and rumours, I've answered so many different surveys at the zoo, that I'll believe it when I see it.