30. The eye(s) of the tiger.

Even though the Siberian tiger is imprisoned, locking eyes with a beast such as this is both terrifying and fantastic. Later that day, I called a female lion over to me by making purring noises - neither things I would've tried in the wild, or without a fence between us.

Now, I'm not usually a big defender of zoos. Some of them treat the animals like it really IS a prison, with a strict policy of miscarriage of justice. I suppose they're all like Kafka's Josef K, and wonder what the fuck they've done wrong. (I'm actually banned for life from a really bad Zoo in Denmark. I'll get back to that, I'm sure.) But. There is one zoo where the larger predators at least seem to live an okay life, and that is Kristiansand Zoo. It's a question of space. Space, and places to hide from prying, human eyes. I've been here twice without seeing the wolves - four times missing the wolverines.

So, my favorite zoos are the ones where you don't always see the animals.