America's Teaching Zoo

Mother's Day is typically a day to be pampered and relax but as a single mom that's further from the truth. So, it was a day just like any other, well almost. I lounged around in my P.J.'s for awhile but that can only last for so long with a two year old, Little Buckaroo gets too restless. So, we are very fortunate to live in area that has an Exotic Animal Training Program (EATM) of  American's Teaching Zoo, located on the campus of Moorpark College.

Silly pose but at least he stood still for it.

Though the Zoo is small, Moorpark College EATM program houses over 130 animals. Many of them are are endangered in the wild, while some are disabled or could not survive in the wild on their own. Students come from all around the world to attend the EATM program to one day work in the animal industry.

Little Buckaroo lead the way and we started off seeing, Clarence, the 85 year old Galapagos Tortoise with one of his student keepers.

He weights over 500 lbs.

Then we headed over to see the winged animals...

"Ghost " the Bald Eagle.

Time to monkey around...



My monkey watching the monkey.

They have animal shows at 12 noon, 1, 2, and 3pm and a carnivore feeding demonstration at 3:30pm. They only bring out four to five animal but it was just enough for Little Buckaroo's short attention spand.

"Zeta", the Red Crested Turaco.


(Cool fact about the Red Crested Turaco, it's feather bleed their color in water.)

It only took us an hour to walk through the entire Zoo and watch the show so we headed out and got some lunch at my favorite pizza parlor. We finished off the afternoon with a dip in the kiddie pool and a long nap, Ahhh!