Most folks wanted to pop in to see the pandas, either to check another DC sight off their bucket list, alongside the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, or to see a famous animal that they'd never seen before and would likely never see again. For my more animal-loving friends, there was something significant about seeing a giant panda for the first time, like a rite of passage. For those folks, it was something that they would always remember.
I was pretty young when I first went to the National Zoo, and as such I don't remember the first time that I saw a giant panda. I do remember the first time I saw a koala, however - it was the same week that I saw my first okapi, bonobo, black rhinoceros, takin, California condor, and a few dozen other species at San Diego (some of which I haven't seen since, and wish I'd paid for attention to in the moment). I remember the first saltwater crocodile I saw, the enormous Maximo, eye-to-eye at the underwater viewing window of St. Augustine Alligator Farm. I remember the first manatees in SeaWorld Orlando, which somehow made much more of an impression on me than the famous orcas.
Even after years of visiting zoos and aquariums, it's not too unusual for me to visit a large facility and see a species that's new to me. For the most part, though, it'll be a species that I've never heard of before; I might not even realize it's new to me until I get home and am going through my photos. Far less common is having an animal that I'd known about ever since I was a child, always been interested in, and finally seeing in person. That's a much more special experience - I find myself immediately thinking of everything I'd ever read or heard of or seen on a documentary, while the actual animal is in front of me. No matter how much I think I know about the animal, it always manages to surprise me in that fact that it's... well, that it's there. That it's real. Reading and preparing help me better appreciate the animal when I see it - but they're no substitution for the actual thrill.
A few years back, shortly after the pandemic, I went back to San Diego. It was my third time visiting both the zoo and the safari park, but I mostly went with one animal in mind. I was at the park the moment the gates opened in the morning, and I went straight to the Australian area, where I immediately went to the one indoor exhibit in the park. There, for half and hour or so, I sat entranced, watching the duck-billed platypus swimming through the dark waters of its pool. I'd heard from many people who had seen them that they were surprised at how small platypuses are in person - far from being the size of an otter, they're closer to a guinea pig. I should have known this - besides, I'd seen stuffed platypuses in museums - but I was still shocked. But what really surprised me was how fast it was - the little guy was almost impossible to get pictures of as he zoomed through the water, stopping briefly to forage before zipping away again. All my life I wanted to see a platypus - a live platypus - on the flesh and fur. This animal surprised me. It didn't even come close to disappointing me.
Walking around the grounds of my zoo as an adult, I'm mindful that there are folks here each day who likely have never seen a rhinoceros, or a giraffe, or a lion in real life before. They might only have known them from internet sites and movies, and now they find themselves suddenly confronted with the real thing - the smells, the sounds, the undeniable presence of the animal. In that moment, they know it's real - not CGI or pixelated, not something that was filmed years ago - but an actual animal in the same moment in time and space as they are.
I really to envy them. It's not often that I get to see an animal that I've always wanted to in person for the first time. And as rare as those encounters are for me these days, I try to savor them all the more when they do occur.
