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In this environment, the Toronto Zoo is on a mission to rebrand itself, first and foremost, as a scientific and educational institution.

“A lot of people don’t really see the conservation that zoos do, not only in (zoos) through (captive) breeding but out in the wild,” says Maria Frank, the zoo’s curator of mammals. Zoo revenues constitute the third-largest funding source for conservation efforts in the wild, she argues, citing the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums. “People don’t get that. We’re not an attraction. We are a science-based, education-based organization.”

Perhaps sensing my scepticism, the zoo took me on a four-hour behind-the-scenes tour. As someone not especially fascinated by animals except as pets and as sources of protein, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I was not. Indeed, if everyone could get that tour, they would be selling tickets months in advance.

In the reptile department, Rick Vos deftly corralled a wee Massassauga rattlesnake into a plastic container, where we could see it angrily twitching its tail in vain. (They gain their rattles as their skin sheds.) Vos is part of an effort to re-establish the rattlers in southwestern Ontario, and another decades-long project trying to save the Puerto Rican crested toad.

They inject the toads with hormones on the day they need them to breed, in order to meet strict schedules: they raise the tadpoles for one to two weeks, Vos explains, then ship them by the thousands to Puerto Rico. “Even though you might release 10,000 tadpoles, maybe five of those might make it to adulthood and breed,” says Vos. (Toads aren’t much for parenting, he explains: they lay as many eggs as they can and then they bugger off and hope for the best.)