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Three Zoos for Visiting Baby Sumatran Tiger Cubs

Sumatran tigers are a critically endangered subspecies of tiger from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. There are less than 300 of them left in the wild, and all known population clusters are in decline. So when you have a chance to see one under any circumstances you should avail yourself of the opportunity. And if that chance somehow involves seeing a bunch of baby Sumatran cubs wrestling, that should conclusively settle whether it's worth your time to go wandering around the zoo for an afternoon.

This is all by way of saying that we realize it's been almost a month since we posted about zoos, and we owe you some cute things. Herein are three different parks across two different states, each with a pair of baby Sumatran tigers. We've even included embedded videos and links to picture galleries, because it's Monday and you deserve it.

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Three US Zoos for Spotting Baby Animals This Holiday Season

'Tis the season for happiness and fuzziness, and there are few things happier or fuzzier than baby animals. Since we're all about enhancing holiday travel,, here are three zoos—each drawn from a different region of the country—where you can see recently born cute things:

· Following up an adorable litter of Giant River Otters from January, the Miami Zoo announced a few weeks ago that they had two more live pups to show off. The pups are about a foot long and weigh just under a pound, and are scheduled to go on exhibit sooner rather than later. While you're at the zoo you should visit Juanpur, our favorite escaping Indian rhino.

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How to Visit the San Diego Safari Park's New Baby Elephant

If you think about it, our beloved San Diego Zoo doesn't really have to be good at doing all the things they do. It's true that they have one of the more ambitious social media outreach programs we've come across from any travel or conservation-oriented organization, spanning multi-platform contests, constant tweet-ups, and even the baby panda iPad app that they announced just this morning.

And it's true that they have a whole slew of special behind-the-ropes tours and special experiences on-site for guests who want to get beyond the public exhibits, which—inasmuch as they have polar bears and pandas inside—are themselves kind of awesome.

But the point is that they don't really have to do any of that, because every year the Zoo and its sister Safari Park seem to have more and more cute newborn things for guests to coo over. Given this year's crop of baby hippos, baby elephants, and baby Satanic Leaf-tailed Geckos (totally true, totally real), the two locations kind of seem to sell themselves.

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A Complete Rundown of the San Diego Zoo's Special Experience Tours

We've spent plenty of time telling you how to enjoy our beloved San Diego Zoo virtually, whether via Google Maps Street View or through their PandaCam or by linking up with the Zoo's Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr accounts (all three of which, plus Foursquare, are sometimes used for the Zoo's ambitiously completionist social media contests). But there's a reason why the expression is all about having "a day at the zoo," and that's because nothing really compares to actually being there and seeing the animals.

Thus, the event planners and tour guides at the San Diego Zoo have put together a series of Special Experiences and tours for people who want to go behind the rope line and do a little bit more. We don't have the space to cover all of the myriad ways you can extend your visit, from sleepover programs inside the park to educational events geared toward children. The full range of options are listed here.

What's particularly exciting are the four Tours and Animal Interactions where anyone—kids tagging along or no kids, extra morning for a sleepover or no extra morning—can get behind the scenes and interact up close with the zoo's inhabitants. Last month, we headed down to SD to check out a couple of those tours ourselves, and here's a rundown of what we found.

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San Diego Zoo Celebrating 'Panda Week' with Tons of Contests

Our beloved San Diego Zoo has a knack for getting attention with interesting new media stunts, but this time they've really outdone themselves. In celebration of Panda Week, during which three of the Zoo's famous Giant Pandas have birthdays, they've launched a full-blown new media campaign for fans and visitors.

Starting today there are Zoo-sponsored activities and contests across Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, all revolving around the birthday parties, the Zoo's panda exhibit, and pandas in general.

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Pandas After Dark: The San Diego Zoo to Stay Open Late

The party animals at the San Diego Zoo are going to keep the fun going later into the night with the Nighttime Zoo program. Okay, by "late," we mean 9pm. To take advantage of San Diego's long summer days, the zoo is staying open three hours later than usual and it's offering a slate of evening-only offerings.

Aside from visiting the animal residents, the zoo will have everything from acrobats to bird shows to Calypso musicians who play while hula-hooping starting June 25 to September 6, from 3 to 9pm.

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First Look: The San Diego Zoo's New Polar Bear Plunge Exhibit

It's a huge day at our much-beloved San Diego Zoo, where they literally just opened the anticipated Polar Bear Plunge at noon. We got in a little early to take a look at the upgraded exhibit, where the Zoo's three gigantic polar bears live. First opened in 1996, it recently underwent major renovations and has now been formally relaunched. Kalluk, his sister Tatqiq, and their enclosure-mate Chinook were all out at one time or another to greet guests.

Our gallery of exclusive photos is after the jump, and we should probably mention that we took all of them from publicly accessible areas using a point-and-shoot without digital zoom. This is actually how close you get!

Polar bears and more, after the jump!

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For Valentine's Day, See How Zoo Animals Get Their Swerve On

It isn't only restaurants and candy manufacturers who are capitalizing on Valentine's Day. Zoos are selling themselves as a romantic place to bring your valentine with special events that revolve around observing animal mating habits. It's like what you see on the Discovery Channel, but live and sometimes accompanied with a meal.

Check after the jump to see which zoos are getting frisky for V-Day.

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The San Diego Zoo Brings a Porcupine to New York to Talk Polar Bears

The famous San Diego Zoo is all over the news lately, what their baby panda and being the first zoo to get added to Google Map's streetview, but the good stuff just keeps on coming with the spring opening of their new Polar Bear Plunge exhibit.

Yesterday in New York, we swung by a hotel penthouse to say hi to a few of the San Diego Zoo's animal handlers and staff, who had brought some of the zoo's most portable critters to town (even though they had to take a cargo plane) for appearances on morning shows and the like. There were two endangered tortoises, as you can see above, but also a prehensile-tailed porcupine, who is just about the cutest thing ever and the subject of more photos after the jump.

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Google Uploads The San Diego Zoo To Map's Street View

Via @sandiegozoo, we learn that the world famous San Diego Zoo just got a little world famouser. The Balboa Park-based location recently renovated their entire interior, carving out new roads and paths, rearranging many old and new exhibits, and renaming all their areas. Now the dizzying new layout can be visited by anyone in the world, virtually. The zoo has just been added to Google Maps Street View, making it the first in the country to boast that kind of coverage.

The project couldn't have been completed without Google's new "Trike," a tricycle-mounted camera specifically designed to photograph and add previously inaccessible destinations. You can see the results either by going to Google Maps and typing in "San Diego Zoo" or by playing around with the map we've embedded below the link. We dumped you off at the Koala exhibit, as good a place as any since the zoo has the largest number of koalas outside of Australia.

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How To Get Closer To The San Diego Zoo's New Baby Panda

It seems like all the world's a-twitter today over the San Diego Zoo's 4 1/2 month old giant panda, Yun Zi. The cub stepped outside his den on Monday to explore an outdoor area where he checked out the bushes, played with his mom and climbed on tree branches. This is one of the first times Yun Zi has left his den, so it's causing quite a stir at the zoo and online of course, where people can't seem to get enough of newly posted pictures and video of the baby.

If you want to do more than just gawk at the animals in the San Diego Zoo, they have a volunteer program that offers both short-term and long-term opportunities. Some of the positions available include Interpretive Volunteers who provide information about wildlife conservation to guests, Information ambassadors who answer questions and provide assistance throughout the zoo and Conservation Research Volunteers who usually have a science background and help out in the Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research.

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Head To the Famous San Diego Zoo For Your Dose of Christmas Lights

While people crowd downtown San Diego's Horton Plaza for ice skating and shopping around this time of year, the city offers a holiday alternative at the , which decks itself out in lights, fake snow and themed activities for Jungle Bells.

A highlight of the Jungle Bells celebration, which lasts until January 2, is the eco-friendly synthetic ice rink, the first time the zoo's offered the feature. But don't expect Rockefeller Center. This small rink is better for wobbly kiddies learning how to skate than adults looking to practice their figure eights.

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