As I mentioned in my southern California explorations series last week, I visited the San Diego Zoo while on vacation in December 2013. Obviously, through the bus tour and volunteers on the street, we were told about wildlife conservation strategies and how the zoo is working toward bringing species back from their endangered listing on the IUCN Red List.
Even though I am interested in the conservation of species, I was delighted to see environmental conservation posters, displays and signs as well!
One of my favorite was the water conservation/recycling display. While walking through an exhibit, visitors could stop to read signs about why water conservation is important and how recycling works to decrease the amount of waste! Below are examples of a couple of signs throughout the zoo:
Another exhibit that caught my eye was the carbon graph explaining how carbon emissions cause global warming.
This display was appropriately located next to the polar bear exhibit. The photo above shows the level of carbon in our atmosphere in earlier days, while the photo below shows the exponential growth of carbon emissions should humans continue to burn fossil fuels at the rate we do now.
It is also worth noting that all the benches in the zoo are durawood – a material made of recycled plastics.
That’s all for now at the zoo – thanks for visiting my blog, and if you ever get a chance to visit the zoo, please do! Click here to visit the panda exhibit through the panda cam – one of my favorites!
Abbey Dufoe 