ROAR for Earth Day!

This month, celebrate the earth as a home for animals while lending a helping hand, whether it’s nationally, locally or in your own backyard. With Earth Day approaching on April 22, it’s the perfect time to learn more about local conservation – and we’re ROAR-ing with ideas!

Your local zoo or aquarium is the ideal place to connect with conservation in your community. The Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) and Animal Planet invite you to Party for the Planet™! More than 100 AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums across North America are throwing the largest combined Earth Day celebration in North America. Party for the Planet™ festivities will feature environmental education activities, amazing animal encounters and fantastic family fun. Click here to find a participating accredited zoo or aquarium near you!

You can also support one of AZA's wildlife conservation programs like the Amphibian Fund. Frogs are going extinct. So are toads, salamanders, newts, and the intriguingly unusual caecilians. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums is highlighting 2008 as the Year of the Frog to mark a major conservation effort to address the amphibian extinction crisis. Find out how you can help.

You can also help improve the lives of animals just by changing your behaviors around your own household. For example, have you ever considered how much water and energy your family uses each day? Conserving Earth's natural resources means knowing your ecological footprint – the impact your lifestyle has on the planet – and how to minimize it. Check out these conservation tips that the entire family can practice at home, whether in the yard or on the go!