There is a remarkable zoo in Nebraska that has enclosed its entire grounds and flipped night for day, allowing visitors to experience nocturnal animals in their natural habitat, when the animals are awake. In California, a zoo allows cheetahs to engage in free-roaming hunts. Another encourages rare, nearly extinct species to breed. This documentary is a close-up, behind-the-scenes look inside the world’s most fascinating and animal-friendly zoos.
CreatorMike Mathis
Episode 1
Jan 7, 2005
Architects, zoo keepers and vets re-create animal habitats.
Episode 2
Jan 14, 2005
Hippos thrive in Missouri; a panda is born in Atlanta; an African savannah springs to life in Canada.
Episode 3
Feb 4, 2005
A Sumatran tiger may start a family; macaque sees a dentist.
Episode 4
Feb 11, 2005
Helping a barn owl; researching seahorses for preservation.
Episode 5
Feb 25, 2005
Tigers in an archeological exhibit, growing a live coral reef in an aquarium, and containing gators without many barriers.
Episode 6
Mar 4, 2005
Elephants get a revolutionary new exhibit, a massive desert within a dome, and an underwater cove for Steller's sea lions.
Episode 7
Mar 11, 2005
How an aquarium in the Mall of America made it possible for visitors to actually swim with sharks; steps Nashville zoo took with house gibbons.
Episode 8
Mar 18, 2005
Rebuilding an aviary after a hurricane; cheetah exhibit in which the cats can hunt their prey; containing a group of meerkats.
Episode 9
Mar 25, 2005
In-habitat birth of a rare Sumatran rhino; rain forests in an Ohio zoo; gorilla exhibit without barriers.
Episode 10
Apr 1, 2005
Learning about how highly intelligent chimpanzees are actually teaching the researchers at Chicago's Lincoln Park zoo; how penguins and puffins chill out at the zoo in St. Louis.
Episode 11
Apr 8, 2005
Ferocious lions; sun bears in California; vultures in France.
Episode 12
Apr 22, 2005
Three rhino species in one giant habitat; abandoned jaguar; endangered red pandas.
Episode 13
Apr 29, 2005
Spectacled bears in Zurich; the Congo comes alive at the Bronx Zoo; aquarium at the Mall of America breeds sharks.
