The Zoo Today
Today the zoo has more than 100 animals representing about 40 different species. "It is one of two zoos in the United States specializing in animals native to the Intermountain West." The Pocatello Zoo is the only zoo to incorporate the Shoshone-Bannock tribal culture into its program and design. The Zoo itself sits on a natural landscape covering 23 acres (9.3 ha) in Ross Park. For many of the exhibits there is a 40-foot (12 m) high lava cliff as a backdrop. The cliff divides the Zoo into two levels known as Upper and Lower Ross Park.
There is learning and fun for all ages with the Zoo's 900-square-foot (84 m2) tree house, 30-foot (9.1 m) high tipi, and petting area of barnyard animals. During the school year the Zoo has established the Zoo Outreach Program, where employees bring a "piece of the Zoo" into the classrooms of 3,000 school children each year. An additional 3,000 students visit the Zoo on field trips in April and May alone. The Pocatello Zoo also has Spring and Summer programs and camps. The Zoo holds these educational and entertaining events in the outdoor classroom called the Tall Tales Tent.
Read more about this topic: Pocatello Zoo
Famous quotes containing the words zoo and/or today:
“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)