Health care professionals were recognized and celebrated with a special “thank you” event today (June 19, 2020), after San Diego Zoo Global invited community health care heroes to enjoy a special preview day at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari before both sanctuaries open to the general public on Saturday, June 20.

In between eating her morning meal, a 7-week-old cheetah cub played and pounced in an indoor nursery area at the Ione and Paul Harter Animal Care Center, at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

This week, just in time for the San Diego Zoo’s official reopening to the public on June 20, a 2-month-old male pygmy hippopotamus and his mother, Mabel, graduated from their maternity habitat to the larger main pygmy hippo habitat in the Lost Forest area of the Zoo.

In breeding programs aimed at conserving animals from small or isolated populations, scientists must balance the competing needs of adding genetic diversity and avoiding the introduction of harmful genes. 

After being closed to guests since mid-March, San Diego Zoo Global has announced that the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park will reopen to the general public on Saturday, June 20th., ending the first major closure in the conservation organization’s 103-year history.