"Local" fauna

You might be surprised when I tell you that these are photos of animals that I've taken within just a few kilometers of our house near Saint-Aignan, in the Loire Valley.

No, this is not Josette!

Josette, from whom we bought our house in 2003, said that one day a few years earlier she and her husband had been surprised to see a kangaroo hopping down the rue de la Renaudière one summer afternoon!

How could this be? You might expect to see deer and pheasants in the Loire Valley vineyards, or cows and goats in the farmers' fields... but elephants?

This baby orangutan was born at Saint-Aignan
in the summer of 2003. Thanks to Cheryl for the photo.

Mystery solved: the top three attractions in Saint-Aignan are its 16th-century château, its 11th-century church, and its top-notch 21st-century zoo. The ZooParc de Beauval, located about 2 miles south of beautiful downtown Saint-Aignan, is a national attraction in France (or at least aspires to be). It claims to be the region's no. 3 tourist destination, right after the famous châteaux of Chenonceau and Chambord.

The zoo (which is a French word pronounced [zoh-oh], in two syllables) at Beauval ("beautiful valley") opened as a bird sanctuary in 1980. The story I've heard is that the zoo's founder, Mme Françoise Delord, got involved in rescuing tropical birds that had been imported by Parisians over the years. She owned land here in Saint-Aignan, so 27 years ago she set up a sanctuary and opened it to the public. In 1989, Beauval expanded its collections and became a full-fledged zoo.

This one of those birds that pretends to be injured when you get
close to it by lying down on the ground and sort of flopping around.

The ZooParc de Beauval's web site says the zoo had 430,000 paying visitors in 2004. The zoological park covers about 55 acres and is open year-round.