As a wildlife biologist, I travel to many places to study or protect wildlife. Most of these posts focus on the places where work has taken me, but I also include in this category posts on our vacation trips and what they may teach us about conservation. The work usually focuses on shorebirds in other places, but the expeditions create the opportunity to learn much more about the people who live in wild lands and how they must cope against the odds of living in places rich in resources but constantly under threats from those who only want to cash in natural wealth.
I watched the kids explore the exhibit. The beach and pond where the sanderlings chittered away at each other or the water tank where horseshoe crabs crawled along the bottom. I saw many other people move through the exhibit. Most just experienced the birds and crabs and moved on. The Zoo predicts more than 2 million people will see this exhibit yearly.