BRIDGEPORT — The zoo — a wonderful place for people to see animals up close and personal — is much more than just a place with caged wildlife. Far from it.

Most of the animals at Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport are born there or at another zoo, are in need of zoo care, and many are released into the wild. There are some permanent zoo residents, such as a bald eagle that suffered a broken wing, that are taken in from the wild.

“He found a home with us here,” said Newtown resident Jim Knox, education curator for Beardsley Zoo, which is easily accessible off Route 25 and open year ‘round. In some instances, animals come to the zoo after they are confiscated if they were kept illegally.

“We care for animals that don’t have the ability to care for themselves anymore,” Mr Knox said. “Our mission is conservation, education, research, and recreation. But if people aren’t having a good time, they aren’t coming back.”

Beardsley has 280,000 visitors each year, so plenty of attendees are taking advantage of the opportunity to see, in person, animals they might not otherwise catch a glimpse of. The animals themselves are the big draw, but there are birthday parties, corporate outing opportunities, and various children’s programs offered.

Children can get close to prairie dogs by climbing into a tunnel just for them and putting their heads up above ground in an enclosed see-through plastic bubble that makes them feel like one of those creatures.

Mr Knox noted that people think of the zoo as a place for recreation and to appreciate animals. The zoo is every bit of that and more, he pointed out.

Beardsley Zoo is one of 235 organizations around the world that are a part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Collectively, they care for approximately one million animals.

“Many of those are endangered species,” Mr Knox said.

The Amur leopard cubs at Beardsley are among a couple hundred in human care in the United States, and less than 300 on the planet.

Among the caretakers for the leopard cubs are Chris Baker and Newtown’s Bethany Thatcher.

“I think it’s really cool, but I might be slightly biased,” Mr Baker said. “People get sucked in by different animals,” said Mr Baker, adding that from alligators to turtles to goats, there is something for everyone.

Visitors might concur that, in Mr Baker’s words, it is pretty cool to visit the zoo. Beardsley has more than 100 different species. Individually, there are 500 animals — more than 1,000 individual species if you include invertebrates.

Beardsley has partnerships as close by as in-state, with the Connecticut DEEP, for example, and as far away as Russia and China. “All around the world, really,” Mr Knox said. “We have an international reach because of our partnership. We are a neighborhood zoo. We are a family facility. That said, we are a family facility with a global reach, a global partnership.”

Beardsley Zoo is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and participant in its Species Survival Plan programs, committed to the preservation of endangered animals and actively developing strategies that will protect species and preserve their wild habitats, according to the website, beardsleyzoo.org.

The zoo provides educational programming on- and off-site and does a lot behind the scenes that zoo visitors do not see. For example, over the past 20 years, Beardsley Zoo has reintroduced more than one million Atlantic salmon to native waters in Connecticut.

A quarter from each admission cost ($16 for adults, $13 for children 3-11, $12 for 62 and over; children under 3 are free) is used for “conservation of wild creatures in wild places,” Mr Knox said. “It’s a community effort,” Mr Knox said.

That money goes to a variety of wildlife needs. An example of the zoo helping out with wildlife and its international reach is a condor that zoo guests might have seen five years ago that is now flying wild in the Andes Mountains in Columbia.

One way in which people can help is via naming opportunities for families, individuals, and corporations. The red panda habitat’s building, for example, is named after Bob Natt of Easton.

The Beardsley Zoo educates about 60,000 children on school trips to the zoo each year. A new education amphitheater is expanding the zoo’s teaching opportunities.

Mr Knox said children can indirectly assist in the zoo’s mission without even going there by reading. “The more they read, the more they know, and the more they know, the more equipped they are to protect these animals,” Mr Knox said.

Emma Carney is an animal care specialist who pointed out that the animals at the zoo are set up with the habitats they need, all the while providing guests with ideal viewing options.

The red pandas, for instance, have an outdoor/indoor area, and both allow public viewing from the same enclosed area. These pandas also have access to a space of their own, closed off to the public’s eyes.

“If they’re overwhelmed by people, they can go in and hang out on their own,” Ms Emma Carney said.

The pandas, like many animals at the zoo, remain outside throughout the winter months. “They deal with cold weather really well,” Ms Carney said.

There are otters, anteaters, wolves, a bison that shares space with white tailed deer, and many more animals on the 52-acre piece of land.

“It’s been a fabulous summer. We’ve had so many things happen,” said Beardsley Zoo Public Relations Officer Lisa Clair, adding that the cooler months are a great opportunity for guests to see the animals and noting that the zoo is open year-round, closed only on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

Ms Clair said many of the animals are more active in the fall and winter. This is a rare opportunity to see Amur leopard cubs. “They grow very quickly. To see them in their most playful age is really special,” said Ms Clair, adding that it will not be too late to see them this winter. “They love the snow and the rain.”

The zoo is renovating and “reimagining,” as Ms Clair describes it, the farmyard for the first time since the 1970s, and it is expected to reopen sometime this fall.

The newest species at the zoo is the spider monkey; the endangered animal joined the zoo this summer. Beardsley Zoo Curator of Animal Care Rob Tomas mentioned earlier this summer that the zoo has plans put an anteater in the area built for the spider monkeys, once the spider monkeys adapt, to make good use of the space, since the monkeys will tend to stay up high.

“It’s not to say you won’t see a spider monkey riding an anteater once in a while. It’s pretty cool to see that they can be that close,” Mr Thomas said.

Another fun reason to visit the zoo!

The Beardsley Zoo is located at 1875 Noble Avenue, Bridgeport. It is open daily from 9 am to 4 pm. For more information, visit beardsleyzoo.org.