The Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium boasts 8,000 animals on 77 acres. A growing chorus asks: Why do we have zoos?

& Children, families and zoo-goers interact with Lewis the giraffe at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium on June 19, 2024. (Photo by Jess Daninhirsch/PublicSource) As attitudes shift on the morality of animal captivity, zoos are increasingly asked to defend their educational and conservational value. Pittsburgh’s zoo pledges future conservation work and animal release as it angles for accreditation. “PublicSource is an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region.& Sign up for our free newsletters.” by Rachel Windsor, PublicSource June 24, 2024 Nestled within Pittsburgh’s urban environment, the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium brims with wildlife and plants from all corners of the world. That’s where Snowflake, the 28-year-old polar bear, lives. On a typical Friday afternoon in May, she paces along the window of her enclosure, mouth wide as she pants. The temperature reached 62 degrees, only seven degrees higher than the North Pole on the same day. But outside of her air-conditioned cave and chilled water, Snowflake will be far out of her element as Pittsburgh’s summer temperatures rise.& On the other side of the park, African elephants stand in concrete-floored rooms with smatterings of hay and straw to alleviate the pressure from carrying their 3- to 7-ton bodies on...