Today, wildlife educator Jordan Veasley is taking us on a tour of the Cougar Mountain Zoo.

Let's go check out some animals.

Jordan, this place is beautiful.

Can you tell me what can folks expect to experience at Cougar Mountain Zoo?

Well, we're much more a close knit feeling here at the zoo.

You can get really close to the animals.

You can see them having their personal and amazing behaviors.

Just natural behaviors.

How do your education programs support the zoo's mission?

Well, our mission here is conservation through education.

So we have close encounters where you have a series of professionals coming in and talking to you about the animals, and you're getting these up close and personal experiences with the animals.

When people see an animal up close, you can smell it.

You can almost feel it.

You can feel their breath.

That gives you a whole special experience.

Yeah.

Can we go meet some of the animals?

Of course we can.

Let's go!

That's Miksha, our big male.

He's about 145 pounds right now, which is a good size for an adult male cougar.

And this is one of our females, Tika.

They're extremely strong.

One of the strongest of the cats.

That really powerful tail almost acts like a rudder as they're chasing and bounding after prey.

They're an ambush predator, which means they will lie in wait and stay hidden.

And then they pounce when they see prey coming by.

So here we have our Gray Wolf pack.

We have three gray wolves.

One of the big things about them is that people like, they look just like my dog.

But, right they are related to dogs, right?

They evolve from a similar common to wolf-like ancestor.

But these guys are a lot stronger, faster, smarter, larger.

And overall, my personal opinion, cooler.

At the Cougar Mountains, we have all kinds of opportunities to interact with some of the animals in a different way that you would not be able to almost anywhere else.

Yeah!

And just having th..

They're adorable.

This is Rio.

He is a Blue and Gold Macaw.

He is an ambassador animal.

So he gets to go out and represent for his species and people get t.. His feet, they're called zygodactyl feet, which means he have two toes in the front and two toes in the back.

And that’s so if a branch is moving, he can keep his grip and not fall off.

Yeah.

His color.

Beautiful.

Right.

Amazing.

So in the rainforest environment where they live, he'd be living up high in the trees.

So that way he would actually blend in with all the different beautiful flowers that are up there.

So he would, it's almost like a camouflage for him.

This is Fern.

She is two years old.

She is what's called a Prehensile Tailed Porcupine.

And she gets that name because of that amazing tail.

You see it’ll wrap around branches, cause she is an arboreal species, which means she lives up high in the trees.

And so that tail will wrap around and keep her protected as she's climbing through.

So take one of these and just hand it right to her face.

Here you go.

Oh my gosh!

See how gentle she is with that.

She's so polite and gentle.

She's very polite.

Wow!

And she has this really soft nose.

Go ahead and toss that to her again.

So she has really poor eyesight.

So she has these amazing whiskers that help her feel around.

And when I was calling her, I was knocking.

Right.

So she can hear that and feel the vibrations she’ll be able to tell- She can't see you so well.

She can't see me as well.

They have this black and white coloration because up in the trees where they live, it helps them blend and more of like a, almost like a shadowy figure.

So it breaks up her pattern.

So you can't really tell what she is if you are a predator.

Right.

Yeah.

Henrietta, the zoo's oldest animal.

She is 53 years old.

She is a three toed box turtle.

And she might be the most famous animal we have here at the zoo.

She was the zoo's first animal back when the zoo opened in 1972.

Jordan, thank you so much for this incredible tour of Cougar Mountain Zoo.

What an awesome experience.

Of course.

No, thanks for coming.

The alpacas speak highly of you.

Thank you so much.

I'm Angela.

Thanks for exploring.

I’ll see yea.