Homes that they share

Homes That They Share presents conservation issues important to the zoo community and showcases a wide variety of families enjoying their visit to the zoo. Many charismatic, large mammals are often favorites of children visiting a zoo. The book recognizes this attraction and opens with a young girl asking her father, Why do we need to save animals in the wild when we can visit them at the zoo? Each page that follows shows a different species found in the zoo and highlights just a few of the wonderful and amazing species that share habitat with this species in the wild. If we save habitat for these species that we see at the zoo, we will have a richly varied mosaic of wildlife that helps keep our world healthy and constitutes a home that we all can share. The book is a collaborative effort among three authors. Two of us visited a dozen zoos in North America and at each, chose a particular exhibit to highlight. The book identifies those zoos and also points out that zoos all around the country can use this book to highlight these exciting species as found in their zoos and advance the conservation issues surrounding their management. The third author created beautiful, original water color illustrations to best represent the species from a specific exhibit and that species companion species in the wild. The book features a balance of animals covering six continents and a wide variety of human family constitutions and cultures. Each copy of the book features places to glue pressed pennies, popular souvenirs from a day at the zoo, allowing visitors to match featured species or zoos, or to use the pressed pennies as memories of a fantastic day at the zoo. Zoos that were visited include some with free admission, such as Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, Minnesota; Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City; Henry Vilas Zoo, Wisconsin; Lincoln Park Zoo, Illinois; Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C.; and the Saint Louis Zoo, Missouri. Other National Landmarks include the nation s first zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo, Pennsylvania; and the home of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Bronx Zoo, New York. The book also features truly beautiful exhibits from the Minnesota Zoo, Minnesota; Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma; Reid Park Zoo, Arizona; and Detroit Zoo, Michigan. This book will enhance visitor experiences at each of the zoos featured as well as the hundreds of zoos across North America fulfilling their major roles in conservation and public education.