Prospect Park + Zoo

 If you’re looking for a place to hang out with friends, family, or your partner, definitely try Prospect Park. Prospect Park apparently spans 585 acres across Brooklyn. It is located between the neighborhoods of Ditmas Park, Flatbush Avenue, Park Slope, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Windsor Terrace. There’s also a beautiful lake with plenty of trees and green grass nearby to rest. I saw families fishing and others around the vicinity having a BBQ, reading a book, or simply spending time with friends and/or family to play sports or catch up.

Lefferts Historic House (former home of Continental Army Lieutenant Pieter Lefferts built roughly around 1783) was open to the public to go in and explore.This is the WigWam –  a reproduction Native American wigwam built by students of the Brooklyn New School (PS146), and instructor Jeff Gottlieb. The frame of the wigwam is made from local tree saplings and the covering is made from reeds. This is similar to the Lenape Tribe wigwams back in era 900-1700.It was my first time visiting Prospect Park Zoo last week and it was so worth the long commute there. There were so many animals and everyone who worked there genuinely looked happy to be there. The admission fee for adults (13+) is $8, $6 for seniors (age 65+), $5 for children (ages 3-12), and FREE for children two and under. I went on a super hot day, but rest assured, there are exhibits which are indoors with some breezy airconditioning. You will be okay – not everything is outdoors!I don’t even know how I goat here.  Here we are, the barnyard and petting part of the zoo. I’m sorry these puns have goat out of hand, please don’t herd me. (You can also purchase food to feed the goats, alpacas, turtles, etc.)My Alpaca friends won my heart.This one crept up behind me as I was talking to people and this was my view when I turned back. A bunch of baboons.I learned how to milk a cow (more like water a fake cow) and that cows supposedly have four stomachs – three that help digest the grass they munch on and one that works like the human stomach. I checked with Google and it seems to check out. They have ruminant stomachs – stomach with four separate compartments, namely the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum. Each compartment has its own specialized role in the digestive process.Very cute prairie dogs, but they looked oh so guilty like they were plotting something.You were also allowed to go into this cave-looking place to climb up and pop your head up to be like a prairie dog. WARNING: It is REALLY humid and hot in there.I’d like to think that I pay close attention to de tail.I  really loved how the peacocks just wandered so freely around the zoo like they run the place. One stopped a bit too close to me and did this…show-off.There was a sea lion demonstration – they were fed food in turn to wave, speak, and plop back into the water. Other animals not mentioned or pictured above but I remember seeing includes the African Brush-Tailed Porcupine, Baby Doll Sheep, Fennec Fox, Dingo, Dwarf Mongoose, Emu, Golden Lion Tamarin, Madagascar Jumping Rat, Poison Dart Frog, Red-faced Parrot Finch, Tufted Deer, and Owl-Finch. The zoo has a discovery trail in which I spotted a red panda  I hardly got to see. It was all the way in the back of the exhibit eating and the only photo I captured turned out to be blurry. After exploring and returning, it was gone completely. Let me know if you have better luck!

The bottom line is,if you haven’t already, I think this zoo is worth a trip – gets my seal of approval!

Prospect Park Zoo
450 Flatbush Ave
New York, NY 11225
Summer Hours (March 25, 2016 – November 5, 2016): Weekdays 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. weekends + holidays
(718) 399-7339
prospectparkzoo.com or wcs.org