American Zoo and Aquarium Association - Track, wander, and wonder with and about animals on land or by sea in this amazingly comprehensive and engaging site. It is in fact the Website for a national professional organization, but its online material is accessible to the layperson. Read the diaries of teams following elephants in Cameroon or Red Wolves in North Carolina. Departments include conservation, development, and government affairs, among others. Opinion polls and ways to better inform your opinions abound, even for children. If you're looking for a zoo or aquarium in your area, or a schedule of upcoming zoo events throughout the U.S., you can find them here. Finally, read in-depth feature articles like one about the trials and tribulations of re-introducing the Bali Mynah bird in Communique, AZA's online magazine. Bookmark this site! (12 November 2001) SS
http://www.aza.org/
Gulf of Maine Aquarium Home Page - While this site for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium has plenty of useful content on marine biology particularly pertaining to the Gulf of Maine area almost nothing is said about the aquarium itself. The site also suffers from a lack of any indicators as to which sections appeal to which audiences and the intended audiences vary widely. Having said that, the site's seven sections offer a wealth of knowledge for those willing to dive in. 'Space Available' could scarcely hold any more information on remote sensing, ocean soundings, satellite imaging, as well as cetacean studies, meteorology, Antarctica and human impact on aquatic environments. While the information in this section is predominately presented in lesson plan format, most of the material should be digestible to most high school students. The 'Marine Mammals' section is more student-friendly, with cetacean profiles that include behavior, communication, and social structure. 'All About Lobsters' is certainly an appropriate topic for an aquarium in Maine. While it does go into extraordinary detail did you know, for instance, that the lobster has three stomachs, the first of which has teeth? it suffers from a lack of illustration and a bit of internal redundancy. 'All About Turtles' may take second, but is a good destination for younger readers, despite its opening with a snapping turtle that shouts 'I'm a mean, green fighting machine!'. 'Katahdin to the Sea' gives junior high school-level overviews of various water systems and their ecosystems and, finally, 'On Location' covers projects involving Alvin, a manned deep ocean research submersible. This section includes a link to the official site, which has a webcam and an extensive photo database from various dives. The latter is notable for its professional scientific descriptions of images, such as "rock with critters". (17 October 2001) MN
http://octopus.gma.org/index.html
National Zoo - Who needs reality shows when we have the National Zoo's 24-hour Naked Mole Rat Cam? The National Zoo's website creatively and clearly presents a cornucopia of animal knowledge with essays, photos, and videos. Adults will be fascinated by the essay on Perceptions of Animals in American Culture, and children will be thrilled to see the exhibits on-line. The search function is a useful research tool, and descriptions of the zoo's own scientific researchers and their areas of interest are available. The videos require a variety of plug-ins that may take some computers a long time to download, but even without video, this is a great place to learn about conservation issues. PITOHUI! Is this the name of the world's only poisonous bird, or onomatopoeia for the response of the would-be predator? You will have to go to the site, or to New Guinea to find out. (12 April 2001) SS
http://natzoo.si.edu/
New England Aquarium - The home page of the New England Aquarium in Boston submerges visitors in a virtual tour of underwater biodiversity. From the front page's featured exhibit‹currently a well-illustrated and fact-filled look at the threatened ecosystem of Africa's Lake Victoria‹to less heavy subject matter like 'Play with Sea Lions', this site almost redeems the fluffy term 'edutainment'. Click on 'Visit' to get a virtual tour of the aquarium that includes 360-degree walk-through's of the Penguin Pool and the Aquarium Medical Center. Also on offer is a well-illustrated clickable map of the Aquarium that highlights everything from Penguin Island to the 200,000 giant ocean tank and its resident sea turtles, moray eels and every kid's favourite sharks! 'Explore' features the Virtual Whale Watch and its facts on whale physiology and behaviour, as well as the Virtual Helicopter Ride over Boston, which leads, of course, to the Aquarium. The 'Learn' section outlines 'at home' projects, such as making otter whiskers out of spaghetti (yup), using pennies in a jar to approximate mathematical sampling for fish population, or making a 'blubber mitt' out of vegetable shortening and sandwich bags. The only thing visitors to this site might find disappointing is that they aren't driving distance to Boston! (9 March 2001) MN
http://www.neaq.org/
Cyber Tiger - This is a small but sweet offering from National Geographic Magazine. Aimed, presumably, at children, the site allows you to prepare a tiger enclosure for your cyber zoo in readiness to receive a shipment of a Siberian tiger. You learn how to make him comfortable, what to feed him, how to make him safe, etc. Children will enjoy the interactivity, and should pick up some basic information about tigers along the way. Requires a Java-enabled browser. (19 February 2001) KN
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tigers/main...
Zoo Outreach Organisation - The Zoo Outreach Organisation (ZOO) was founded by Sally Walker in 1985 as a "Friends of the Zoo" for South Asian zoos. The aim of the organisation is to provide general help for zoos, for example, by arranging sponsorship, scholarships and air travel for Indian zoo and wildlife workers to attend symposia and training around the world. This is the website of this organisation, and apart from giving information on ZOO, it also attempts to provide details about many of the animals found in these zoos. There is information about the habitat, feeding habits and global and local distribution of many different species, as well as their endangered status and the measures being taken to protect the species, such as captive breeding programmes. There is also advice to zoos themselves, including a section on becoming more "child-friendly", with ideas such as putting clear panels in walls at a low height so that children can see the animals. This is a very worthwhile website, with good information on many different species, and suggestions for zoos to increase their appeal, and work to conserve endangered species. As the site says, "Zoos give wild animals with NO chance a LAST chance." (18 December 2000)
http://www.zooreach.org/
Oregon Zoo - Apart from being a standard 'zoo' site with visitor information, saving species, about our animals etc. this site comes in to its own for the Rhino Cam, a camera trained on Imara, a baby black rhinoceros (the first rhinoceros to be born at the zoo), which updates every 30 seconds. The way things are going in the wild zoos may soon be the only place to see this ancient creature that has survived the test of time until man came along. She would look far better in the Ngorongoro crater, mind. (23 September 1998) MF
http://www.zooregon.org/
