Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Nordic Ark, July 12th 2008. Part 22

Next to the wolf enclosure was another big and beautiful enclosure; this was for the European forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) of which the Ark has a small herd. Which is kept right next to the wolves. Umm ... correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't these be the wolves' natural prey? Anyone?

Oh well, I don't know really, do I. It was a beautiful enclosure, anyway. But the part we saw first looked empty. Not a deer to be seen. :-) So we kind of gave up on them - figured they'd be smart enough to be sleeping in the shade, too. But after we left the wolf house and continued along the path, we discovered that the reindeer enclosure kind of curves around and there's more of it as you go further along (pretty much all of the enclosures are bigger than you expect them to be, it's wonderful :-) and suddenly, there they were. Sleeping in the shade, yeah. :-) But there. One of them was a calf that was awake and grooming itself. Aww. But I have to say that its efforts were pretty half hearted. :-) I guess it must have been really hot for them.

(Photo credit: me)

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