present. Animal Avenue, a children's zoo expansion, allows people to meet a variety of species including meerkats, ring-tailed lemurs, and black and white ruffed lemurs. Along with two other sections of the Kids' Zone Magical Movement and Contact Junction. Botanical Garden The certified Point Defiance Zoo Botanical Garden displays a collection of a variety of bamboos (over 50 species), massive meadows filled with Lobelia tupa, fragrant perennials to attract pollinators, and many varieties of trees and shrubs planted throughout the grounds. The collection boasts a variety of flora from the Baja Peninsula, the Southern Hemisphere, Alaskan landscape, plants from South Eastern United States, wildflowers, desert garden, Asian Forest Sanctuary, and the Native Northwest. The landscaping was developed in an effort to share how and why animals, plants, and people need to coexist. The Zoo is home to hundreds of varieties of plants from decorative to functional, and also provides botanical garden tours monthly by the Zoo Horticulturist. Other exhibits Unincorporated exhibits include an artificial tide pool, a Magellanic penguin habitat, a seasonal budgie exhibit and Indian Peafowl which roam freely throughout the Zoo grounds. The zoo also formerly had Camel Rides but when they decided to build the Nature Play Garden, the Dromedary Camels moved back to their owners at a local farm. Conservation One focus of the zoo's conservation work is the red wolf. Beginning in 1969, the zoo collected wild red wolves and successfully bred them for the first time in 1977. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had removed the last fourteen wolves from the wild by 1980, and in 1984 the zoo received approval from the AZA to start a Species Survival Plan. By 1987 the number of red wolves in captivity was large enough to release some of them back into the wild. Reintroduced wolves continue to survive and breed in the wild, and by 2002 the world population was 175 in captivity and about 100 in the wild. One of the biggest threats to the wild population is coyote-wolf hybridization. A 2021 effort to breed endangered Sumatran tigers ended in the death of a six-year-old female tiger who was fatally wounded by her two-year-old potential mate. This was an attempt to save the endangered species considering there are roughly only four hundred Sumatran tigers left in the wild. See also References External links Zoos in Washington (state) Aquaria in Washington (state) Buildings and structures