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Zoos
Zoos are places where we can see animals.
There are lots of different animals in zoos.
There are lots of plants in zoos too.
In some zoos you can pat animals.
In some zoos you stay in a bus and the animals walk about.
The word zoo is short for zoological garden or park. The idea of zoos is not new, but the look and purpose of zoos has changed over the centuries.
Earliest beginnings
More than 4 thousand years ago, Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt made a garden for animals that her soldiers brought back from other countries, animals that were not known in Egypt. This is the first zoo recorded in history.
About 500 years later, the Chinese Emperor Wen Wang designed a huge garden, which was called the Garden of Intelligence. It was in fact an enormous zoo spread over about 600 hectares (1500 acres). After this, many small zoos were set up across Northern Africa, India and China by kings or emperors to show how rich and powerful they were.
Statue of Queen Hatshepsut
The ancient Greeks had zoos in order to study animal behaviour. Students were expected to visit zoos as part of their education. They paid to get in.
Centuries later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, European explorers sailed in search of new lands, and brought back new plants, wonderful spices and fabrics, and strange creatures. The animals were kept in cages in big gardens.
These early zoos were all private: ordinary people did not visit them. They were for rich people and the special guests they wanted to impress.
Modern Zoos
The beginnings
The idea of the zoos as we know them began when a public zoo was set up in Paris in 1794, and the purpose of that zoo was scientific research and education. Ordinary people were able to visit and see the animals. This same idea was used when the London Zoo was set up in 1828. The Melbourne Zoo, opened in 1860, was the first zoo in Australia. That same year saw the opening of the first zoo in the United States, the Central Park Zoo in New York. Animals, even big cats and apes, were all kept in concrete cages with bars or wire fronts.
In the early days, people did not know very much about animals from other countries, so they could visit a zoo and look in amazement at animals that must have seemed so strange to them. They were fascinated by the similarity of apes to humans, and at some zoos there were 'chimpanzee tea parties', where the apes were dressed in clothes and had teapots, teacups and food. There were also elephant rides at many zoos. Early zoos were more about entertainment for the ordinary people.
Developments and changes
Zoos began to change. People became more familiar with animals from all over the world, through books then films and TV. Ideas about how to keep animals started to change gradually, and nowadays zoos build exhibits that create a natural habitat as similar as possible to the animals' natural habitats. This encourages animals to behave more closely to how they would in the wild. In some places there are exhibits for nocturnal animals: in the daytime when visitors are there, special lights make it seem like moonlight. When the visitors go home, the lights change so that it is like daytime, and the animals go to sleep as they would in the wild.
Conservation focus
Things started to change in the 1970s when experts began to realise that some animals and habitats were becoming endangered. They started to talk about conservation. Gerald Durrell was one of the leaders of this movement, and he started the Jersey Zoo. He and others like him thought that zoos could help by becoming active in conservation programs.
There are now special breeding programs for endangered animals, and zoos around the world work together, guided by people who oversee each program.
21st Century zoos
As well as working for conservation of endangered species, modern zoos educate people about animal behaviour and habitats, and about the environment. They help research animal species and conditions. They bring people into contact with nature.
Open range zoos and animal parks
In 1931, Whipsnade zoo in England opened the first wild animal park. Larger than an ordinary zoo, the park has very large areas for its animals. Wild animal parks, or open range zoos, allow animals to roam in large spaces. They can run or climb, herd animals can be together as they would in the wild, and the animals can live more closely to
how they would in the wild. 
Visitors are in cars or buses, so they are the ones enclosed. There are open range zoos in Australia, such as Werribee Open Range Zoo in Melbourne, as well as in the USA and Europe.
Disapproval of zoos
There are people who think that zoos should not exist, believing that it is cruel to keep animals captive rather than free in their natural wild habitat. Others do not disagree with the idea of zoos, but worry in case zoo animals are unhappy or bored. They are concerned that animals in a zoo may not be able to behave in a natural way as they would in the wild.
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Zoos (2007). [Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au
Updated October 2007