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CINCINNATI (June 18, 2021) – Grab your honey and fly over to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden on Monday, June 21, for a fun-filled celebration of pollinators!  The Pollinator Carnival, presented by Simple Truth, features pollinator-themed stations, spread throughout the zoo, where visitors can learn about different types of pollinators and what you can plant to attract them.

“The importance of pollinators, including bees, birds, butterflies, bats, and beetles, cannot be overstated (but we might get close to that line).  Without them, there’s no food for us,” said Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s manager of botanical garden outreach, Scott Beuerlein.  “We hope the carnival will inspire more kids, and their parents, to take our Plant for Pollinators Challenge and plant a pollinator garden at home,” said Beuerlein

Station topics include honeybees, native bees, plants, wasps, flies, and butterflies.  Interactive stations include crafts, games, and an introduction to iNaturalist, a citizen-science app that visitors can download and continue to use at home. The Zoo’s BuzzTroop ZooTeens will be here to share how they are helping pollinators by collecting data at the Zoo..

The Zoo launched its Plant for Pollinators Challenge in April of 2019 and has registered 2,092 gardens in 24 different states.  That’s nearly 60 football fields of pollinator habitat! Nearly 3 million plants are in registered gardens, and the Zoo hopes to register at least 500 additional pollinator gardens in 2021.

This event is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free with Zoo admission. The Zoo opens daily at 10 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m.  Cincinnati Zoo members enjoy early entry at 9 a.m.  For more information visit www.cincinnatizoo.org.