Wildlife

We took advantage of the beautiful day yesterday, low 70's! last summer I took the squeeze to the Maine Wildlife Park over in Gray, he said he'd never been before so I made it my duty to bring him. We had so much fun, despite the fact that we (per usual) got there kinda late in the day and certain things were closed. Last summer they were in the midst of building the new Lynx exhibit, and a bunch of other animals were on hiatus. This time though we got there early in the day! We managed to go to the snack shack and nature store that we missed last time, and I spent way too much money on a MWP t-shirt. Anyway, here are a couple Lynx in said new habitat! They look like large house-cats in person, but their paws are massive. Like huge saucers. These guys eventually hauled themselves to the back of the enclosure, where people couldn't go, of course. But I managed to snap this picture before they fled. I love cats, no matter how big.

These two were hilarious. The big brown bear bullies the little black bear, but they were both equally adorable. There are food dispensaries around the park to feed certain animals, corn for the deer, some sort of grain for the terrifying local Canadian Geese that were hanging around (one actually attacked the squeeze), and then the bears had what looked like cat food. A mix between Cheerios and cat food to be exact. Despite the fact that it seemed silly to feed tiny Cheerio cat food pellets to these bears, they would vacuum them right up off the ground. They would even sit and beg! I tried to snap a picture as these two massive teddy bears sat up side by side with their paws up, but I didn't grab my phone in time and the brown one plopped back down. I felt bad for the lame size of the food, despite the fact that the first sign you see when you drive into the park is 'please don't feed the animals' (aside from silly Cheerio cat food pellets) I grabbed the apple I had in my purse, split it in two, and chucked it into their enclosure. I regret nothing!

This little guy was probably our favorite, he's an albino Raccoon! At first we couldn't see anything inside his dwellings, but the second he heard the crunching of a plastic bag he came running out full force. Such a curious sight to behold! I've never seen an albino Raccoon, or anything albino at that matter. A group of small girls threw him a french fry which missed the fence by inches, he stretched out his tiny little human-like hands and managed to grab the fry and devoured it. Again, my empathy for anything small and furry got the best of me and I threw him part of a cheese stick. I still regret nothing! The squeeze got very, very close to take a video, the whole time this little guy was pressed against the fence with his tiny hands stretched out trying to grab the phone. So cute!