My Kind of Zoo

Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo

Scheduled to open in July 2005, the new Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo will re-create a local woodland ecosystem and highlight close-to-home conservation success stories.  Visitors of all ages will learn how communities and organizations are rallying to save marshes, prairies, and woods threatened by development, helping to welcome Midwestern species back to their native habitats. The Children’s Zoo will feature bears, wolves, otters, beavers and a host of other species indigenous to the Great Lakes region.  The exhibit will encourage children from our increasingly urban, technological world to better know and respect the wonders of our natural environment. 

The Pritzker family funded our existing Children’s Zoo and is continuing its commitment to children’s environmental education through a generous gift to the new exhibit.

Behind the New Exhibit

Whether by building a beaver dam or climbing high into the canopy of a Midwestern forest, children visiting the Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo will have plenty of opportunities to touch, build and play. Developed in consultation with child-development specialists and teachers, the Children’s Zoo will reflect the latest understanding of how children of all ages and learning styles can benefit from the zoo experience.

Meet the Animals

The inquisitive, playful otter has long been a zoo favorite. Visitors love to watch as these sleek creatures dart through the water and skillfully hunt minnows.

But the otter is also an endangered species. Illinois rivers once teemed with them. In the last century they were nearly hunted into extinction. In this century their habitats have been destroyed by encroaching development. Now, thanks to local conservation efforts, they are coming back. So are other threatened species such as beavers and night herons, which will also welcome zoo visitors into their world.

With the help of these animals, the Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo will bring the message of conservation close to home, teaching us that everything we do to the environment has consequences—and possibilities.