A zoo is a place where animals live in captivity and are put on display for people to view. The word "zoo" is brusque for "zoological park." Zoos contain wide varieties of animals that are native to all parts of the Earth.

Though people have kept wildlife for thousands of years, those collections take non ever resembled modernistic zoos. The get-go zoos were created as private collections by the wealthy to prove their power. These private collections were called menageries.

Wall carvings found in Egypt and Mesopotamia are show that rulers and aristocrats created menageries equally early on as 2500 BCE. They left records of expeditions to distant places to bring back exotic animals such as giraffes, elephants, bears, dolphins, and birds. There is evidence that ancient zoo owners hired animal handlers to brand sure their animals thrived and reproduced.

Zoos also existed in subsequently civilizations, including China, Hellenic republic, and Rome. The Aztec emperor Montezuma Two, in what is today Mexico, maintained one of the earliest creature collections in the Western Hemisphere. Information technology was destroyed past Hernan Cortes during the Spanish conquest in 1520.

Modern Zoos

The model of the modern, public zoo became popular in 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was a menses in European history when science, reason, and logic were promoted every bit ideals of society and regime. The scientific focus of the Age of Enlightenment extended to zoology.

During this time, people started wanting to study animals for scientific reasons. Scientists wanted to research animal behavior and anatomy. To practice this, scientists and zookeepers had to keep animals in places that were close to, or resembled, the animals' natural habitats.

The first modern zoo, congenital in 1793, opened in Paris, France. The menageries of French aristrocrats, including the king and queen, were taken by leaders of the French Revolution and relocated to the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes. The facility is still a busy and popular zoo in downtown Paris.

Early zoos like the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes were more than like museums of living animals than natural habitats. Animals were kept in pocket-size display areas, with as many species as space would let.

Today, zoos are meant to entertain and brainwash the public but have a strong emphasis on scientific enquiry and species conservation. At that place is a tendency toward giving animals more space and recreating natural habitats. Zoos are usually regulated and inspected by the government.

Types of Zoos

Urban and Suburban Zoos
Urban zoos, located in large cities, still resemble the smaller zoos that were popular 200 years ago. Oftentimes, these zoos sit in the middle of cities, making expansion difficult. There is little room for urban zoos to grow, and many of the zoo'south buildings are celebrated landmarks that cannot be destroyed or redesigned.

In many urban zoos, animals are kept in relatively small enclosures. Some animal activists fence that keeping animals in urban settings is roughshod because of cramped conditions, dissonance, and pollution.

Urban zoos are mutual in Europe, while many zoos in the United States developed every bit sprawling parks in suburbs outside cities. These open-range zoos requite animals more territory to roam and provide more natural habitats. This popular technique of building realistic habitats is called landscape immersion.

The San Diego Zoo, in southern California, is the largest zoo in the United states of america. It is a suburban zoo that houses more 4,000 animals (800 different species) in its 0.four square kilometers (100 acres). Landscape immersion divides animals into their natural habitats, such equally the tundra (with reindeer and polar bears) or bamboo forest (featuring pandas.) The San Diego Zoo likewise includes a wild animal park, which is fifty-fifty more expansive (almost viii square kilometers or two,000 acres.)

Safari Parks
Larger than urban and open-range zoos, safari parks are areas where tourists can drive their own cars to come across non-native wild animals living in large, enclosed areas. These attractions allow the animals more infinite than the modest enclosures of traditional zoos.

Fuji Safari Park, in Susono, Japan, offers a traditional zoo as well as a drive-through safari park. Visitors tin take their own cars or one of the park'south buses. Fuji Safari Park offers dark tours, so visitors can run into nocturnal animals, or animals that are active at dark. At the park, visitors can also feed some animals, such equally lions, from bus windows. Not all parks encourage or even permit visitors to feed animals.

Safari parks, peculiarly in Europe, are oft part of larger theme parks or resorts. They include golf courses and fairground attractions, such equally games and rides.

Game Reserves
Game reserves are large swaths of land whose ecosystems and native species are protected. The protections allow animals to live and reproduce at natural rates. Animals are immune to roam free.

In the 1800s, a trip to hunt "big game" (big animals such as elephants or lions) was called a safari. While some game reserves let traditional hunting safaris today, others limit visitors to a "photo safari," where visitors can shoot photographs, not animals.

Animals in all game reserves are protected from illegal hunting, which is a threat to many endangered species. Legal hunts are regulated by the regime. Hunters must purchase licenses and are strictly limited to the type and number of animals they tin can chase. Poachers, or hunters without licenses, impale animals for valuable torso parts. Elephants, for example, are killed by poachers for their ivory tusks.

There are game reserves in Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Still, almost game reserves are in Africa. Millions of visitors flock to sites across Africa to run across the aforementioned animals that absorbed audiences thousands of years agone. The biggest attractions are Africa's "Big Five" species—lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and water buffalo. The Big 5 are non Africa's largest species (although the elephant is): They are the almost difficult to find and, when legal, to hunt.

Simply recently has a single zoo, Gondwana Game Reserve in Due south Africa, offered all Big V animals in one identify. Gondwana sits on 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) near the centre of South Africa's southern coast. Similar many big game reserves, Gondwana has diverse ecosystems that occur naturally and has no need for landscape immersion. In Gondwana, grasslands coexist with shrubland chosen fynbos. Visitors to Gondwana, similar many game reserves, can stay in hotels correct in the park.

Petting zoos
Petting zoos feature domesticated animals that are gentle enough for children to pet and feed. Sheep, goats, donkeys, and rabbits are common petting zoo animals.

These types of zoos are found at parks and inside of larger zoos. Sometimes mobile petting zoos travel with fairs or carnivals from city to city.

Specialization

Near zoos have specialized enclosures and habitats for specific animals. Zoos in cold climates, such as Novosibirsk, Russia, must recreate warm ecosystems for animals similar lemurs. Lemurs are a type of primate native to the island of Madagascar, off Africa's east coast. The summer temperatures of both Siberia and Madagascar are about the aforementioned—effectually 21 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit).

However, Republic of madagascar receives nigh 200 to 250 millimeters (8 to 10 inches) of rain each summer, making it a humid jungle environment. Novosibirsk gets only sixty to 65 millimeters (ii to three inches) of rain and snowfall. The difference in wintertime temperatures is even more drastic: Madagascar is about fifteen degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). Lemurs' fur can keep them warm at this temperature. Winter in Novosibirsk is -x degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit). The Novosibirsk Zoo has ii species of lemur with a specialized heated enclosure with high humidity.

Some zoos are defended entirely to certain species. Aquariums are types of zoos that exclusively house aquatic animals. The Sydney Aquarium in Australia has exhibits of all of Australia's major water systems and is home to more than than 650 native Australian species.

Aviaries and bird parks are another type of specialized zoo. The Jurong Bird Park in Singapore has more than 8,000 birds of 600 species from around the globe. Jurong has more than i,000 flamingoes in an African wetlands exhibit that features a daily faux thunderstorm.

Conservation

The World Clan of Zoos and Aquariums, the international organization for zoos, is concerned with the health of animals in zoos. The focus of environmental efforts takes the form of research, convict convenance of rare animals, and conservation.

Researchers at zoos can study animals up-shut. They can observe behavior such as mating and nutrition choices. Biologists and veterinarians are too bachelor to treat sick or injured animals.

Captive breeding of endangered species makes zoos valuable places for fauna survival. Animals such every bit the black soft-shelled turtle, native to Republic of india and Bangladesh, are extinct in the wild. Simply they survive in several zoos around the world, with their wellness looked after by biologists.

The goal of many captive breeding programs at zoos is the re-introduction of animals into the wild. The California condor, a very big bird native to the due west declension of the Usa, has been re-introduced to its native habitat after convenance in zoos and wild fauna parks. In that location are several convenance pairs of California condors in the wild today.

Critics of convict breeding programs say that releasing a few animals into the wild does little to assist the species population. Animals are extinct in the wild largely due to loss of habitat. The re-introduction of animals, especially large mammals that crave vast territory for survival, does nada to recover lost habitat. People continue to develop land for homes and businesses.

Zoos oft have conservation projects in the native habitats of the animals they keep in captivity. For instance, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums established a partnership with people in rural Papua New Guinea to salvage tree kangaroos. These rare species are threatened past loss of habitat and the growing population of Papua New Guinea: Villagers hunt the tree kangaroo for meat. A zoo plan introduced a rabbit-farming program to address the nutritional needs of the villagers. Zoos besides gear up upwards conservation sites where the hunting of tree kangaroos was outlawed.

While zoos have put more importance on conservation and humane animal treatment in contempo decades, some critics say it is cruel to go along animals in captivity. Critics debate that living in captivity takes abroad wild animals' natural behavior and instincts. Supporters of zoos say they play an important function in protecting endangered species.

zoo

Zoo-Literacy
Many books of fiction, nonfiction, and historical fiction concern zoos.

Life of Pi is a novel past Canadian author Yann Martel. The father of the chief graphic symbol, Pi, is a zookeeper at the Pondicherry Zoo in India. When traveling across the Pacific Ocean, from India to Toronto, Canada, the boat carrying Pi, his family unit, and all the animals of the zoo sinks. The simply survivors, lone on a lifeboat in the eye of the ocean, are Pi and the zoo's Bengal tiger, whose proper noun is Richard Parker.

True-blue Elephants: A Truthful Story of Animals, People, and War is a nonfiction book written by Yukio Tsuchiya and illustrated past Ted Levin. The volume tells the story of three elephants of the Uneo Zoo in Tokyo, Nippon, in the fourth dimension leading up to Globe War II.

Pride of Baghdad is a graphic novel written by Brian 1000. Vaughn and illustrated by Niko Henrichon. The factual story, of lions that escaped from the Baghdad Zoo as the war in Iraq began, is told from the lions' point of view.

City of Brotherly Animals
The showtime zoo in the United States opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1874. The Philadelphia Zoo remains one of the nearly of import zoos and facilities for convenance rare and endangered animals.

Modern Menageries
People still enjoy collecting animals to display in their private homes. The American entertainer Michael Jackson, for instance, had a menagerie that included tigers, giraffes, parrots, and, of grade, his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles.

The Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar kept an enormous private zoo that included elephants, buffalo, and camels. Some of Escobar'southward hippopotamuses, native to Africa, escaped into the Colombian jungle. Afterward Escobar'southward death, the remainder of the animals were sold or donated to zoos around the earth.

Age of Enlightenment

Noun

(1700s) menses in European history where science and reason were promoted as ideals of good citizens and gild.

beefcake

Noun

structure of an organism.

aquarium

Noun

a container or tank where aquatic plants and animals are kept, or an institution that keeps such containers.

aquatic

Adjective

having to do with water.

asylum

Substantive

enclosed expanse where birds are kept.

Aztec

Noun

people and culture native to United mexican states and Central America.

bamboo

Noun

type of huge, woody grass.

behavior

Noun

anything an organism does involving activeness or response to stimulation.

Big 5

Noun

nigh difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot: lion, African elephant, greatcoat buffalo, leopard, and blackness rhinoceros.

big game

Noun

large wildlife.

biologist

Substantive

scientist who studies living organisms.

breeding pair

Noun

animals who cooperate over a period of time to produce generations of offspring.

California condor

Noun

largest land bird of Northward America, with a wingspan of 3 meters (ix.5 anxiety).

captivate

Verb

to hold the attending of.

captive breeding

Substantive

reproduction of rare species controlled past humans in a closed surround, such as a zoo.

carnival

Noun

traveling evidence with games, performances, and food.

Substantive

circuitous manner of life that adult every bit humans began to develop urban settlements.

climate

Noun

all weather weather condition for a given location over a catamenia of time.

Noun

edge of land forth the sea or other big trunk of h2o.

Noun

management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect.

cramped

Adjective

crowded or having very little space.

destroy

Verb

to ruin or brand useless.

domesticate

Verb

to tame or adapt for homo utilize.

drastic

Describing word

severe or farthermost.

Noun

community and interactions of living and nonliving things in an expanse.

enclosure

Substantive

expanse surrounded by a wall, fence, or other physical boundary.

Noun

organism threatened with extinction.

exhibit

Noun

display, often in a museum.

exotic

Describing word

strange or strange.

expansion

Substantive

procedure of enlarging.

expedition

Noun

journey with a specific purpose, such equally exploration.

extend

Verb

to enlarge or continue.

extinct

Describing word

no longer existing.

extinct in the wild

Noun

highest level of conservation of a living species, when the only living members of that species are protected in captivity such as zoos or aquariums.

woods

Noun

ecosystem filled with copse and underbrush.

French Revolution

Noun

(1789-1799) menses in France when the monarchy ended and the country was a republic.

fur

Substantive

thick pilus covering the pare of an animal.

fynbos

Substantive

shrub vegetation region native to the southwest coast of South Africa.

game reserve

Substantive

expanse of state filled with wild fauna and preserved for hunting or tourism.

Gondwana Game Reserve

Substantive

large zoological park in S Africa.

authorities

Noun

arrangement or order of a nation, state, or other political unit.

grassland

Substantive

ecosystem with big, flat areas of grasses.

Substantive

environment where an organism lives throughout the yr or for shorter periods of time.

Hernan Cortes

Substantive

(1485-1547) Spanish explorer and conqueror of what is at present Mexico.

humane

Describing word

kind or gentle.

boiling

Adjective

air containing a large corporeality of water vapor.

hunt

Verb

to pursue and kill an animal, usually for nutrient.

illegal

Adjective

forbidden past law.

instinct

Noun

natural motivation or behavior.

Substantive

unit made up of governments or groups in different countries, usually for a specific purpose.

ivory

Noun

hard, white substance that forms the teeth or tusks of some animals.

jungle

Noun

tropical ecosystem filled with copse and underbrush.

landmark

Noun

a prominent feature that guides in navigation or marks a site.

landscape immersion

Noun

process of building realistic habitats for animals in zoos.

lemur

Substantive

type of small mammal (primate).

logic

Noun

organisation of scientific or researched reason.

mammal

Noun

beast with hair that gives birth to live offspring. Female mammals produce milk to feed their offspring.

mate

Verb

to reproduce or breed.

menagerie

Noun

individual collection of animals.

Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes

Noun

zoo in Paris.

Mesopotamia

Substantive

ancient region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, today lying mostly in Republic of iraq.

Montezuma II

Noun

(1470-1520) Aztec emperor.

museum

Noun

space where valuable works of art, history, or science are kept for public view.

native species

Noun

species that occur naturally in an area or habitat. Too called indigenous species.

nocturnal

Adjective

active at nighttime.

nutrition

Noun

process past which living organisms obtain food or nutrients, and use it for growth.

petting zoo

Noun

area where domestic animals are kept for visitors to pet and feed.

poacher

Noun

person who hunts or fishes illegally.

primate

Noun

type of mammal, including humans, apes, and monkeys.

promote

Verb

to encourage or help.

public

Adjective

available to an entire community, not limited to paying members.

Noun

liquid atmospheric precipitation.

reason

Verb

to form thoughts and make connections based on facts and logic.

reproduce

Verb

to create offspring, by sexual or asexual means.

research

Noun

scientific observations and investigation into a subject, usually following the scientific method: ascertainment, hypothesis, prediction, experimentation, analysis, and conclusion.

resemble

Verb

to wait similar.

resort

Substantive

facility or space people go to relax in a luxury setting.

roam

Verb

to wander or travel over a wide area without a specific destination.

rural

Describing word

having to practice with country life, or areas with few residents.

safari

Substantive

trip to investigate, hunt, or photograph big game animals.

safari park

Noun

zoo where visitors can bulldoze through open spaces filled with wild animals.

San Diego Zoo

Noun

large zoological park in San Diego, California.

science

Substantive

knowledge focused on facts based on observation, identification, description, investigation, and explanation.

shrub

Noun

type of plant, smaller than a tree but having woody branches.

Siberia

Substantive

region of state stretching across Russia from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Bounding main.

simulate

Verb

to create an image, representation, or model of something.

society

Noun

large community, linked through similarities or relationships.

specialize

Verb

to study, work, or accept an interest in i area of a larger field of ideas.

specific

Adjective

exact or precise.

sprawling

Adjective

spread out.

suburb

Noun

geographic area, by and large residential, but outside the borders of an urban area.

swath

Noun

path or line of material.

Noun

degree of hotness or coldness measured by a thermometer with a numerical scale.

theme park

Noun

entertainment park where all attractions focus on one or more specific ideas, or themes.

thrive

Verb

to develop and be successful.

thunderstorm

Noun

cloud that produces thunder and lightning, often accompanied by heavy rains.

tourist

Noun

person who travels for pleasure.

tree kangaroo

Substantive

type of mammal (marsupial).

tundra

Noun

cold, treeless region in Arctic and Antarctic climates.

urban

Adjective

having to do with city life.

vast

Describing word

huge and spread out.

veterinarian

Noun

person who studies the health of animals.

wealthy

Adjective

very rich.

Western Hemisphere

Substantive

surface area of the Earth w of the prime number meridian and east of the International Appointment Line.

Noun

area of country covered past shallow water or saturated by water.

wildlife

Noun

organisms living in a natural environs.

World Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Noun

international organisation for zoological parks.

Noun

place where animals are kept for exhibition.

zoological

Describing word

having to practise with animals.

zoology

Noun

the report of animals.

  • Credits

    Media Credits

    The sound, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another folio that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or grouping credited.

    Writers

    Kim Rutledge
    Tara Ramroop
    Diane Boudreau
    Melissa McDaniel
    Santani Teng
    Erin Sprout
    Hilary Costa
    Hilary Hall
    Jeff Chase

    Illustrators

    Mary Crooks, National Geographic Society
    Tim Gunther

    Editors

    Jeannie Evers, Emdash Editing
    Kara Due west

    Educator Reviewer

    Nancy Wynne

    Producer

    Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society

    Sources

    Dunn, Margery G. (Editor). (1989, 1993). "Exploring Your World: The Take a chance of Geography." Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.

    Concluding Updated

    July 22, 2011

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