Today, as was not the case, perhaps when I was born, zoos have become man’s primary contact with biological diversity. The vast majority of people will never see any great number of wild animals except in the zoo. That gives the zoo an enormous educational opportunity, an enormous window of opportunity for it to affect the thinking of the people who come to the zoo and those that may be interested in zoo programs. Nevertheless, the zoo must deal with the fact that the majority of people who come do not come there to be turned into instant conservationists or even to be educated. But recent surveys have shown that a lot of people who do go to the zoo and in fact, the majority, eventually admit that in fact, they did come to be educated and they are more interested in animals than they were before. The AZA has done several such studies, which are very encouraging, but we have an awful long way to go that direction. But I don’t think that everybody who goes to the Metropolitan Opera or listens to the symphony becomes an opera fam or a music buff.
