Halloween Scare With Important Message To Impart On Display At Philadelphia Zoo

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Zoo has a haunting Halloween display that many visitors are finding thought-provoking.

In the zoo's Extinction Graveyard there are ornate tombstones for animals who no longer walk the earth from long ago to modern-day.

"Some were hunted to extinction, like the Dodo bird was. Just last year we used to have a species called the Bramble Cay melomys," said Danielle Quagila, a learning and engagement specialist with the zoo. "It's actually an Australian rodent and we lost it to climate change."

(credit: John McDevitt)

Quagila says the feature exhibit is meant to impart an important message.

"The biggest goal of this is to have people think about how their actions impact the wildlife of the environment we share," she said.

There are also couple of markers reserved for species that could one day be extinct if too little is done to save them, like the critically endangered Western Lowland Gorilla. Its tombstone reads, "last seen in 2035?"

(credit: John McDevitt)
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