On Easter Sunday in 1970, the Baton Rouge Zoo first opened to the public. A lot of credit is due to Bill Black, a.k.a Buckskin Bill, who was a popular children’s TV host. He would end his program everyday saying “Baton Rouge needs a zoo.” He encourage children to collect pennies and donate them so the Zoo could purchase an elephant. The children would line up outside the studio to donate the pennies they collected. The campaign was so successful, the children collected enough money to buy two elephants. One of the elephants was named Penny.

There are currently no elephants at the zoo.  When one of the last two died, the other was ship off to another zoo so it would not be lonely.

The zoo is located in Louisiana, so of course, there are alligators.

This alligator look big and mean enough to go through the fence if he was hungry.

The trip to the zoo was worth it, just to get this picture.

I caught these birds doing… well I will give you a hint.  They are in a nest.

This little one decided to pose for me while I was standing there.

It a very pretty area.  A nice area to walk around, or take the train.