Capybara Tour 2012: Wrocław

Shortly after the Valetine's Day I had an opportunity to continue the Capybara Tour, which had begun last year. This time I visited the Wrocław Zoo with my boyfriend. It was one of the last days of winter, quite warm and sunny. We found capybaras at the elephant pavillon, where they're kept during the winter.

There are 2 capybaras at Wrocław Zoo, both female. As you can see, they're sitting in different cages and and they look sad.

The older one in the photo above.

And the younger one. We took more photos of this young capy because we had better light there. That's why we have only one good photo of the older one. I'm happy I could see them, but I was hoping for better living conditions there. It was not dirty, quite warm inside, but I'm still wondering why they don't live together.

Capybara scratching it's back and cleaning the fur.

I think the last photo is the best one. We made one video too.

In general they looked healthy, but they were bored. You can see this in their eyes. I'm sure it's better during the spring/summer season. We saw the South America Park at the Zoo and this is where capybaras live when Winter is over ;-) Let's hope for warm spring days, so that capies at the Wrocław Zoo will go outside!

Capybara tour: Vienna

On Saturday 13th Aug I visited Tiergarten Schoenbrunn in Vienna with my bf. This zoo belongs to Schoenbrunn Castle. We didn't see all animals, because capybaras were the most important for us. We spent most of the time on making photos of them. It was not easy because there were only 3 capybaras, living on large area with other animals.



Capybara lives in "The South America Park" (part of the zoo) with Tapir, Nandu, Vicuna and Great anteater. It was very funny to hear German speaking people who didn't know what capybara/Wasserschwein is - they called it 'riesen Meersau' which means 'huge sea sow' (just like Meerschweinchen = Guinea pig = 'sea piggy') ;-) I'm still laughing.





The animals have separate 'rooms' in a special hut where visitors can come and observe them.



When we arrived, it was meal time for Capybara.



After finishing the vegetables, some capybaras went a little bit further from their hut to continue eating the grass.





And finally one of them got tired of eating and found some cozy place for relax ;-)





I think they're pretty good at relaxing, aren't they?...



During our walk around the zoo we were leaving and coming back to The South America Park few times hoping for an opportunity to make better shots. Each time we came back we tried hard to find capybara again.





Sadly, there were no capybara pups, and we didn't see swimming capybaras. They have a nice pool with glass so that you can see them in water. Although they weren't the main attraction of this zoo, we were happy to see them there. The weather was not perfect for taking photos too, but at least it stopped raining when we found capybara. I hope to make more trips like that in the future / ^ t^).

Capybara tour 2011

My recent plans have changed, and It seems that I'll soon have the oportunity to see capybara at Vienna Zoo. I'm going there with my bf. I think we won't go to Prague zoo, maybe next year? Our polish part of capy-tour will be Wrocław and Opole, btw Opole is on our way to Wrocław so we'll stop there to see capies. We're planning Vienna trip in two weeks time, around 8/10. Can't wait to put my own photos here / ^ t^). Today I checked Vienna zoo site and you can find therea nice bunch of animal photos, incl. capybara (Wasserschwein) photos ;-). Be sure to check guinea pigs site also.

Capybara in Vienna zoo


Capybara in Opole zoo (PL)


Capybara in Wrocław zoo (PL)