Alaska diaries : The Alaska Zoo, Anchorage

On our recent trip in Alaska, I was absolutely determined that, if nothing else, I wanted to see at least one bear and one moose. I didn't care where, but I just wanted to be able to tick them off my bucket list. After chatting with Jim, who we were staying with, I admit that I did have a few doubts about getting up TOO close, but I was still up for it ! In the end, we didn't actually see any in the wild (boohoo !), but Jim drove us down to Anchorage so that we could be sure to see all the local animals in the zoo.

The Alaska zoo, which is the only zoo in Alaska, is home to about 100 animals and birds, with over fifty species, including, for the most part, those native to Alaska. What I absolutely love about the zoo is that many of the animals were found orphaned or injured before being taken to the zoo to be cared for. We spent about 2 or 3 hours wandering around looking at the animals (and munching on reindeer hot dogs - I kid you not !) which was plenty of time to see everything.

The beginning of the zoo is a fun story. It was started back in 1966, when Anchorage grocer Jack Snyder won a contest offering a prize of either $3,000 or a baby elephant ! Unsurprisingly (or not, I suppose !), he took the baby elephant and, a couple of years later, Alaska Children's Zoo was opened, with the elephant as the biggest attraction. Sadly, Annabelle the elephant died back in 1997.

We started off visiting the seals' enclosure, watching them lazing around outside of the water then diving in to cool off.

Just next to the seals were the otters, which were having great fun swimming around, trying to get at a little green sweet placed up next to the glass, which was hilarious !

We headed around, checking out the other animals, including these musk ox, which are apparently called oomingmak in Inuit.

We loved all the educational boards dotted around the zoo, with samples of fur, teeth and bones, as well as scaled down skeletons, to discover.

There were also lots of displays of antlers, from various sizes and species of deer and moose.

Lots of them were fixed to the railings at the perfect height for antler-selfies!

I think they definitely look better still attached to the animals though !

The wolves looked very laid-back and chilled-out in their huge shady pen, lying serenely on the plastic slide or wandering around aimlessly ... until a visiting teenage girl came bounding down the path, howling like a wolf. According to Jim, she was obviously a hunter, practising out her wolf howl imitations. Literally seconds later, the whole pack of wolves came up to the fence, howling back at her - I have no idea what it all meant but it was very impressive !

Moving down past the temporary cages, we came across a very frail-looking baby moose - just 4 months old apparently and brought into the zoo when its mother was killed in a road accident. This was the first moose that I'd seen, but I didn't really count it, as it was so small and had no antlers !

We watched the eagles, checked out lots of other animals (llamas, camels, porcupines, dall sheep, foxes and deer, to name but a few), ate some snacks then finally - woohoo ! - we headed to the big brown bear enclosure. There were three bears in there, as far as we could see, all snoozing in the sun, and before long, one woke up and wandered down to the bottom of the enclosure, just next to where we were standing. Woohoo again ! 

We had another adventure awaiting us, so we headed back to the car, full of smiles, stopping off at the gift shop on the way out and buying various souvenirs.

If you want to find out more about our trip to Alaska, click here !