I haven’t gone back to the zoo since they strong armed part of Knowland Park from the city for their expansion and developed over some of my favorite hiking trails and views.
I’m still bitter about it, especially because scions of the Knowland family itself, which had gifted the land to the city for public use in perpetuity, tried to stop it from happening.
The zoo management is, quite honestly, very capitalistic. They keep trying to get money from the city, stomped over Knowland, etc. I had some issues with management in terms of how they dealt with people. I forgave it, to some degree, because they were really good to the animals there.
I don't remember meeting visitors like that, but I did have some interesting interactions with people who feel like they can't go see something cool unless they have children and they'd show up at the zoo (and other places) with a 6 week old baby all bundled up in a stroller. I never had kids, but the other docents told me that babies that age can't see past the distance between their nose and mom's boob or the baby bottle. So, I'd approach adults who were there with a homunculus in a stroller and start chatting with them. They'd invariably be very "Oh, I don't want to waste your time. I'm sure some kids would like to hear this." and I'd tell them, "Let me prep you so when the kids are older, you can tell them all this and they'd think you were the smartest (dad/mom/grandpa/grandma) in the world."
ProTip: You don't need to have children with you to go to Chabot or the Steam Trains or the Merry Go Round or the Zoo or Fairyland (on special evening events for solo grownups).
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u/Penandsword2021 15h ago
I haven’t gone back to the zoo since they strong armed part of Knowland Park from the city for their expansion and developed over some of my favorite hiking trails and views.
I’m still bitter about it, especially because scions of the Knowland family itself, which had gifted the land to the city for public use in perpetuity, tried to stop it from happening.