A ‘mini window into the wild’

… the Denver Zoo’s president and CEO, Bert Vescolani, is a former science teacher?

Vescolani is proud to say that the zoo puts on hundreds of programs for tens of thousands of students annually. Various educational programs are available for all ages and include virtual classrooms; camps; school field trips; student career resources, including shadowing a zookeeper; many volunteer opportunities; and even graduate degree programs.

These programs are not to mention the on-site education every zoo-goer can receive by simply viewing the animals and exhibits, and visiting the Denver Zoo’s new Schlessman Family Foundation Visitor and Education Center where people can view the zoo’s veterinarians caring for the animals in real time inside the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital.

… the Denver Zoo spends about $2 million each year on conservation efforts?

The Denver Zoo’s Field Conservation Department has programs across the Front Range, working with bison and the American pika — which is a small mammal that is a member of the rabbit family — and mitigating the impacts of I-70 on wildlife.

Outside of the U.S., the zoo’s Field Conservation Department works with vultures, sheep, gazelle and falcons in Mongolia; frogs in Peru; and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey in Vietnam. These programs are in addition to a small grants program for zoo staff, staff-nominated emergency conservation projects and ongoing staff projects, all of which take place across the globe.