Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

The Zoological Society of Cincinnati will begin a project, entitled “Inspiring Action through Wildlife Encounters,” that is designed to build the capacity of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (CZBG) to motivate conservation outcomes among its annual 1.2 million visitors through enhanced wildlife encounters. Over a two-year period, CZBG proposes to conduct an iterative process of planning, training, implementation, and evaluation that builds from the base of already-successful wildlife encounter efforts at the CZBG. These efforts include animal shows, random animal encounters, animal feeding stations, meet-a-keeper presentations, and volunteer-staffed discovery zones. The proposed iterative approach provides exceptional opportunities for learning and innovating that can prove valuable not only in a practical way in serving CZBG’s own local geographic community but also to the wider zoo and aquarium community.