Tragedy to Triumph . Educating people about animals and their habitats is one of the most important goals of a zoo. People need to understand these things in order to better help our animal friends, perhaps even save them from extinction. There are a number of ways that zoos accomplish this. Recently we e-mailed Beth Verhanovitz, education director of the Elmwood Park Zoo with questions about how the zoo informs people about animals.
Training depends on the type of animal.
For reptiles, as long as the animal has been handled since it was young, there is very little training involved. Mammals also are not generally difficult if they are around humans from when they were young. Birds can be very difficult to train and it may take years to properly train a bird. On average, we give one performance per day from November- March. We can give up to 8 shows a day during the busy spring and summer months.