Zoo offers educational and fun activities for the entire family

It used to be that the Zoo offered family fun educational activities mainly during special events and during summer camp Now visitors can count on daily programs every day of the year.

Zoo programs focus on presenting animal information and conservation education, a term used to describe the goal of helping people better understand animals and their habitats while encouraging them to become involved in efforts to protect them. For example, at the daily 10:45am and 2:45pm sea lion programs, Zoo educators encourage visitors to become better informed consumers by passing out Sea Food Watch cards that encourage people to buy only fish from the oceans that are still in abundant supply. At the noon elephant demonstration people are encouraged to learn more about endangered Asian elephants and to support the Zoo’s Conservation Fund. Contributions from the fund and the Zoo’s cell phone recycling program are supporting important elephant conservation efforts in Sumatra. In cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, trained elephants in Sumatra are helping to keep wild elephants away from agricultural areas where they often come into conflict with people.

In between scheduled programs, visitors can learn more about the animals on their own by taking the self-guided bilingual Elephant Walk Tour. The free brochure focuses on how elephants are important to many other species that share their habitat in Asia. Visitors follow life-sized elephant footprints as they walk through the Zoo.

Before or after a visit people can visit the Zoo’s award winning website (www.elpasozoo.org) which features profiles and pictures of over 60 different species plus a Kid’s Zone. The Kid’s Zone helps little ones learn how to make their own jungle. Here also one can find a copy of a special Passport to the Zoo activity booklet and story children can read or parents can read to them about the Zoo’s biggest residents, Juno and Savannah.

For more information about the Zoo visit http://www.elpasozoo.org/ or call 915-521-1850