(bright music) - The Lehigh Valley Zoo is located within the Trexler Nature Preserve.

The Nature Preserve has been here since the early 1900s.

And then in 2004, the Lehigh Valley Zoo became an accredited zoological facility.

And since then, we've been bringing in a lot more diverse species.

When I was in college, I was studying biology, and I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to do.

I thought maybe become a vet.

I knew I wanted to work with animals.

So when I first graduated, I took an internship at the Philadelphia Zoo in their children's zoo area, and I fell in love with zookeeping.

So my first full-time zookeeping job was actually here at the Lehigh Valley Zoo back in 2006.

I worked here for about five years.

I left, worked at the Bronx Zoo for about 12 years, and now I am back as the curator.

So I'm from the area.

So this place, the Lehigh Valley Zoo is near and dear to my heart.

As we've been expanding the Lehigh Valley Zoo, we've been adding a lot of species from all different continents, different parts of the world.

Our newest building, Habitat Madagascar, we have our lemurs.

We have mongoose lemurs and red ruffed lemurs that we are hoping to breed.

(bright music) We have some Australian animals.

We have red kangaroos here at the zoo.

We have one male, his name is George.

And you can definitely tell who George is.

When he stands up, he's significantly bigger than the other kangaroos.

He's big and in charge, and he lives with four females.

The red pandas are the newest exhibit here at the zoo and the newest species that we've brought in.

They are indigenous to the Himalayan Highlands.

We try to mimic that in our design of the exhibit, including a big rock structure for them to climb on.

They are an animal that is our arboreal, so you would find them up in the trees.

Two red pandas that we have here at the zoo are brothers.

They are a little over one-year-old.

And they're another animal that since they are an endangered species, we are hoping to breed in the future.

We have two Masai giraffe here at the zoo, Joshua and Tattoo.

Our two male giraffe.

And they are from parts of Africa, typically over towards the east coast of Africa.

Since giraffe live in groups where there is one male and multiple females, our role is to maintain the pair of males, a small bachelor herd so that they have a place to live as well.

Guests can even come to the zoo and feed our giraffes.

We do feedings every single day up until November, and then we take a break for the winter.

(bright music) The bison herd was originally brought in by General Trexler.

Herd of six males, eight females.

They are not in the Lehigh Valley Zoo proper.

They're actually located in the nature preserve.

The first thing you see when you enter the Lehigh Valley Zoo are the African penguins.

They've been here at the zoo for quite some time.

We have 14 penguins, seven males, seven females.

Penguins are monogamous.

(silly music) And we offer two different penguin feeds for guests to watch.

One of our keepers will be feeding the penguins.

We keep a tally of how much each penguin eats on a regular basis as it's a very good indicator of their health, as well as when they're about to begin their molting cycle.

They chase butterflies or even bubbles.

Occasionally, they'll go out and take a swim, doing normal penguin behavior.

Zoos have come a long way as far as the role that they play in wildlife conservation.

There's a lot more to it than just putting a couple animals together for breeding.

There's a lot more work being involved in release programs, getting those animals back out into the wild.

Something that people often forget about is the connection that we build.

Hard to feel connected to something that you don't see close up, but when you come to the zoo, you get these experiences.

You get to be near these animals that you never would get to see in the wild 'cause they're from Africa or Australia or Asia.

Building that connection and recognizing the importance, it may seem very basic.

Even though it seems like a very small thing, it does play a big role in making sure that these animals have a planet to live on in the future.

(bright music)