At The Backroads

Koalapalooza Sign at Entrance

We went last Sunday at San Diego Zoo when we saw the San Diego Zoo’s Discovery Day: Koalapalooza on local TV. They had free raffles of koala stuff toys, among others every hour for free. 

Stuffed Toys for Raffle Prizes (done @ every hour)

Since we have annual membership at San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, we decided to  avail again of our free visits to the zoo to be part of the celebration of these amazing denizens down under. My hubby asked me what is the best time to visit the zoo, I told him if he plans to be part of the merry making where the Koalas are awake, the best time would be late afternoon.

A Fully Awake Koala

During the day, koalas are mostly asleep, being nocturnal animals.

Koala Feeding on Eucalyptus

Koalas feed on eucalyptus, and because there is very little nutritional value in the leaves of eucalyptus, koalas spend most of their time sleeping.

Sleeping Koala

Sleeping koala is probably the most common situation zoo guests would experience since most guests visits during mid-day. The zoo looked very festive last Sunday, there were a lot of koala keepers talking to the guests, and also the zoo’s veterinarian was around to share to everybody how they track koalas in the wild and also how they keep the health of koalas in the zoo. The San Diego zoo’s koala exhibit has 22 koalas, which started in 1970s and is the largest colony outside of Australian. They actually have 40 koalas but loaned to other zoos to give ample room also at the exhibit.

There were a lot of activities at the zoo, like scavenger hunt, but we decided instead to walk around more at the zoo as an exchange to walking in trails.

I will post a lot more about the zoo’s walk in one of my posts later.