Also known as “Members’ Night Out”, Members’ Wild Night is the biggest night of the year for our members - an evening designed to show our appreciation for their support. Members are invited to come out and enjoy this fun-filled members only event and get to know the Zoo from the inside out!
The evening will include behind the scenes tours, special keeper talks, animal close encounters, activities for the kids, FREE rides on the carousel and more.
Getting there
We left Redmond at 5pm. The journey took us two hours because of rush hour traffic. This is usually a 45 minutes trip. The Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium's parking lot was already full when we arrived. We had to park on the curb. At the entrance, there were staffs checking our membership card and moved us through the express lane. I guess the zoo management is aware of the popularity of this event based on past experience.
We are in!
After we went through the gate, there were serveral tents. The tents were for:
We headed first to the Paul Titus Antique Carousel since it is the closest to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium's front gates. Usually, it costs $1 per ride, tonight, it's FREE. There were quite a number of people in the queue but everyone was in good mode. Fortunately, the queue moved pretty fast too.
Usually it cost a dollar per ride
Decoration inside the Carousel.
The queue
Question: I am not sure why Zoos have Carousel?
Elephant Barn Open House
We headed next to the Elephant Barn. This elephant barn hosts 2 female elephants - Hanako and Suki (Source). You can read more about them in this blog. Tonight, we get a chance to visit their "home". Inside the barn, I felt like walking in a gaint world. There are volunteers showing and explaining about the tail hair, the teeth and the nail of an elephant. They also did a good job of describling the functionality of the barn's compartments.
Facts about Hanako and Suki
Instead of elephants we have people inside the elephant barn
A mold of the elephant teeth
Poop!
Asian Forest Sanctuary Open House
Previously, we were told that the animals were rotated out of the display exhibit each day. Tonight, we get to "visit" the animals in their resting area. We first walked through the offices before getting to the cages.
My first impression was that it felt like we are in a prison - it is all concete and steel, no no fancy layout that makes the animals feel like they are in their natural habitat.
Question: Would the animals prefer to be out in the exhibit or here in the cage?
Budgie Buddies
We arrived 5 minutes before the Budgie Buddies closed. Each seed stick to feel the budgies cost $1. We managed to feed a couple of the budgies which was fun experience. An interesting observation I made was that the budgies seem to know that it is closing time and flew off to their nest on the dot.
Closing time!
Kids Zone
This is definitely a big attraction for the kids. We spend the half an hour of our visit to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium here.
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