National Visit The Zoo Day: Visit Plumpton Park Zoo In Rising Sun

RISING SUN, MD — If you’re looking for something to do while the kids are out of school, a visit to the Plumpton Park Zoo might be just the ticket. Thursday, Dec. 27, is National Visit the Zoo Day.

For those who want to hit the zoo on the weekend, Plumpton Park Zoo presents "Zoo Lights" on Friday, Dec. 28, and Saturday, Dec. 29.

The event runs from 6-9 p.m. and features light displays and a tiger feeding at night. Admission is $10 per adult and $5 per child for Zoo Lights.

Zoo exhibits have changed significantly over the years. Before the 20th century, animals were often kept in cages with bars that left them very little room to move around, let alone explore their surroundings. In today’s zoos, enrichment activities — things the animals enjoy doing and that demonstrate their species-specific behavior — are viewed as essential to animals’ welfare as proper nutrition and veterinary care.

What’s your favorite part of the Plumpton Park Zoo? Tell us in the comments.

Zoo animals’ habitats have expanded, too. The movement to house animals in a more “natural” space began in the early 1900s when Carl Hagenbeck, whose family was involved in the wild animal trade, created “Tierpark” in Stellingen, Germany.

Gone were the bars and cages and in their place were moats to separate some of the animal groups, according to Smithsonian Library blog written by Polly Lasker. Hagenbeck encouraged trainers to treat the animals kindly and use gentle coaxing rather than some of the harsher methods that were typical at the time.

“What is now taken for granted by almost every visitor to a zoo — moated exhibits in a landscape simulating nature; gregarious animals of mixed species kept in herds in large enclosures; and animal performances based on conditioning and sensitivity, not on brute force and intimidation — all started at Hagenbeck’s Tierpark,” Herman Reichenbach wrote in “New worlds, new animals: from menagerie to zoological park in the nineteenth century.”

The Plumpton Park Zoo is at 1416 Telegraph Road, Rising Sun, MD 21911. Hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. daily. Tickets are $13.95 for adults, $11.95 for seniors, $8.95 for kids ages 2-12 and free for kids under 2.

— By Patch editors Beth Dalbey and Elizabeth Janney

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Still picture from animal enrichment video by Plumpton Park Zoo/YouTube.