Zoo

Since the early 1900's zoos have been operating in most cities. Today every major city has a zoo and in some cases (e.g. New York) there are numerous zoos.http://gonyc.about.com/od/zoosaquariums/Aquariums_Wildlife_Centers_and_Zoos.htm

Before we proceed further, here are two Dictionary definitions for the term Zoo:

1. The Free Dictionary - "A place where live animals are kept, studied, bred, and exhibited to the public Formal term zoological garden."http://www.thefreedictionary.com/zoo

2. MSN Encarta - "A park displaying live animals in enclosures: a park where live wild animals from different parts of the world are kept in cages or enclosures for people to come and see, and where they are bred and studied by scientists." http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?search=zoo

The term zoo is an abbreviation of Zoological Garden, which itself is derived from zoology, the study of animalshttp://www.freebase.com/view/en/zoo.

The oldest zoo in the world is the Tiergarten Schonbrunn in Vienna, this was established in 1752 and opened to the public in 1779http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Worlds-Oldest-Zoo&id=1111576. The oldest zoos in the USA are:

1. Philadelphia Zoo, founded in 1859, open to the public from 1874 and
2. Central Park Zoo, New York, founded and open to the public 1862

Zoos are a popular attraction in most cities, for example travel guide TripAdvisor rates the following zoos as the most popular attractions in their locality:

1. Henry Doorling Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska, 1st of 66 Omaha attractionshttp://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60885-d209041-Reviews-Henry_Doorly_Zoo-Omaha_Nebraska.html
2. Singapore Zoo, 1st of 201 Singapore attractionshttp://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g294265-d324542-Reviews-Singapore_Zoo-Singapore.html

San Diego Zoo also was placed 10th in TripAdvisor's best 10 US attractionshttp://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/070703_top_10_us_attractions_according_to_tripadvisor/.
Most zoos charge a fee for admissions, this helps the zoos sustain themselves and also helps to fund conservation efforts. Due to admission charges deals and coupons have become popular, especially in the age of the internet. Mahalo has a number of pages, which specialize in zoo coupons, a sample are listed below:

1. Cincinnati Zoo Coupons
2. Denver Zoo Coupons
3. Rio Grande Zoo Coupons
4. Riverbanks Zoo Coupons
5. Woodland Park Zoo Coupons

Zoos have readily adopted the internet for marketing purposes. Here are some zoo pages using various web communication techniques:

1. Website - London Zoohttp://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/
2. Twitter - San Francisco Zoohttp://twitter.com/sfzoo
3. Facebook - Woodland Park Zoo, Seattlehttp://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.facebook.com/WoodlandParkZooSeattle&ei=s7NDS5OuE5Sl4QbLhdSqCA&sa=X&oi=nshc&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAkQzgQoAQ&usg=AFQjCNFDA16Sx1xojWHvUFKlc8XIVrn44g

Many zoos are not for profit and/or charitable organizations. Many zoos are regulated by Zoological Associations. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums maintains a comprehensive list of Zoological associations around the worldhttp://www.aza.org/Education/detail.aspx?id=262.

A key drive of many zoos is conservation. Although the debate rages on with many people that wild animals should not be kept captive, it is undeniable that many animals have survived only through zoo conservation efforts, e.g.:

1. Kihansi Spray Toad project by Bronx Zoo

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0904-kihansi_spray_toad.html

1. Janos-Hidalgo Bison project by Denver Zoo

The Wildlife Conservation Society WCS operates all of the following zoos in New York and contributes to conservation projects worldwide:

1. Bronx Zoohttp://www.bronxzoo.com/
2. Central Park Zoohttp://www.centralparkzoo.com/
3. Prospect Park Zoohttp://www.prospectparkzoo.com/
4. Queens Zoohttp://www.queenszoo.com/ and also
5. New York Aquariumhttp://www.nyaquarium.com/

The top 10 visited zoos in the USA arehttp://www.zoochat.com/22/attendance-american-zoos-100530/: Disneys Animal Kingdom - 9.5 million Busch Gardens Tampa – 4.4 million San Diego Zoo – 3.4 million Lincoln Park Zoo – 3 million St. Louis Zoo – 3 million National Zoo – 2.7 million Bronx Zoo – 2.1 million Brookfield Zoo – 2 million Denver Zoo – 1.9 million Columbus Zoo – 1.8 million