Bronx Zoo Roadtrip - January 2007
All photos by Anna Thomas

Sometimes I really like my job. Especially when they pay me to go to New York City and hang out with gorillas. Such was the case in January when my co-worker in crime Anna and I drove up to the Bronx for two days and got to know some of their animals who were going to be moving down to Philly. We snuck in a little sight seeing in Midtown and had a nice italian dinner with my man Jay near Madison Square Garden. My camera was having issues, so Anna took a boatload and made me copies.


Binturong! Some of my favorite non-primates are binturongs.


Apparently we just missed the polar bear actually doing something, but Anna got a great shot of it taking a nap.


We weren't that close to these langurs, but they had a couple babies running around. Very interesting monkeys.


They're actually ebony langurs, which normally are all black. These animals descend from a population that just happens to be reddish-brown. They also had several that actually were black. It's normal for their babies to be orange.


That's a male white-cheeked gibbon harassing a tapir. Sweet photo!


Black leopard, baby. Awesome.


Baby giraffe, less than 3 months old here. It was like baby central up there. We were in the giraffe building to visit their African wild dog pups (they had 23!!) and to get there we had to literally walk THROUGH the giraffe exhibit. Of course we didn't actually know that until we opened a door and were standing about 5 feet away from them. Crazy.


That's a dwarf mongoose far left, and a dork Oberlin far right. Just for scale - that's a monstrous exhibit for those little carnivores, compared to the one we have. Very panoramic.


Look! A black squirrel! Ohmygod!


A Wolf's guenon, a very colorful and animated monkey.


A baby okapi, very rare and fantastic. It took a poop just because of us. Maybe. And that's a good thing. Long story.


I'm Chris Oberlin and I did not approve this photo. Face shields and masks are not optional.


Occasionally, they would give their gorillas non-toxic fingerpaints and see if they felt like painting. We do it sometimes, too. But we don't have awesome titles for our gorillas' pieces. These were hanging up in their keeper office.



This is Kuchimba, a 4-year old male who is moving to Philadelphia. He's cool.


His mom, Honi. Kind of a weird one.


This was one of the FOUR gorilla babies they had there, which is beyond insane. They are freakin' adorable, though.

Thanks, Anna.