Campers visit Turtleback Zoo to learn about endangered species

Margaritte was our Educator at Turtleback Zoo.

She took us to the new giraffe exhibit to learn about them.  Their numbers have fallen by half in the past couple decades due to the top two obvious and sad reasons: habitat loss and poaching for their meat and tails.  Margaritte stressed that as a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums all animals in the zoo originate from breeding animals already in captivity.  Only on rare occasions, when the gene pool of a species is in danger of breeding unhealthy animals, will the association of zoos take animals from the wild, and those animals are usually in protective environments already. 

Here Cassy the naturalist is explaining about the giraffe's diet.  We got to feed the huge herbivore. 

We also learned about the future sea turtle recovery center that is being built. 

Being a coastal state, New Jersey has a lot of sea turtles off shore and in our bays.  Turtles can suffer from hypothermia if they get stuck in a bay when the weather suddenly turns cold. The new facility will be able to help them endure the winter up hear until they can be rerelease in the spring.