Educational and interactive, Idaho Falls Zoo unveils newest exhibit, the Islands

IDAHO FALLS — An island trip in your backyard? The Idaho Falls Zoo has unveiled a new interactive and educational exhibit aimed at teaching visitors about conservation.

The Island Exhibit is the zoo's latest expansion, combining education and conservation in one place. The new exhibit features four new animal exhibits and an educational space where visitors can learn about the animals and the issues they face in the wild.

"There isn't one part of this exhibit, starting with the playground, that isn't geared to teach people about wildlife and about the challenges that they face in today's world," David Pennock, executive director of the zoo, said. "With the playground, every piece, every sign, every activity that someone does in the playground is geared to teach them about animal habitat."

Pennock told EastIdahoNews.com that plans for the Island Exhibit date back to before 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed progress. However, donations continued, which covered all the funding for this project.

He said while the zoo is owned by the city of Idaho Falls, no taxpayer dollars went into this new project, with donations coming in dollars, time, talent and materials.

With this being the zoo's biggest expansion, Pennock said the zoo has grown in other ways over the past six years, including the improvements made at Funland.

Pennock said not only is the zoo growing, but so is the surrounding community, meaning the establishment has to expand to meet the demand it's seeing. This also creates opportunities to teach residents, young and old, about nature and to introduce new exhibits.

"Last year we saw 150,000 visitors through the gate, and so that's repeat visitors to our zoo," Pennock said. "That's an important dimension of this exhibit is to make sure that the zoo is better at educating our community."

Idaho Falls City Councilman John Radford is proud of the new exhibit, as it helps establish the city's zoo as a strong representative of the American Zoological Association. Only 45 zoos across the United States are part of the association, according to its website.

"We took a chance buying this property from the county, and this was always the vision: to have the zoo take on more of this and do more and have more exhibits," Radford said.

While there to support her family members who donated to the new exhibit, Elizabeth Krell and Jacob Scheer, along with their two children, Levi Scheer, 9, and Theo Scheer, 7, were excited to see it.

"As a mom, you just love getting to see your kids enjoying all the new stuff, and this has been great," Krell said.

Jacob enjoys the interactive aspect of the exhibits because it engages kids and gets them reading interesting facts about the animals.

He said Levi was always interested in what was behind the fence blocking the path to the new exhibit. Now seeing it, Jacob said it was definitely worth the wait.

Levi, who loves otters, told EastIdahoNews.com that he enjoyed the virtual reality headset in the education space, which made it feel as if he were truly there. His brother, Theo, agreed that it was his favorite part.

Those looking to see the new space can visit the zoo daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and those entering near closing, final admission is at 4:30 p.m.

For more information about the zoo, visit www.idahofallsidaho.gov/zoo.

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