Proclamation 5022—Zoo and Aquarium Month, 1983

As the living classroom for some 20 million school children each year, zoos and aquariums have an important role in the American educational process. They also provide stimulating recreational experiences for more than 125 million people who visit them annually.

The United States has some of the finest zoo and aquarium facilities in the world. Many are foremost in the effort to conserve the species they house. American zoos and aquariums cooperate with institutions around the globe to preserve wildlife and to create more sophisticated techniques for exhibiting animals in natural settings. To both children and adults, animals represent a special sense of curiosity, feeling, and caring. By enabling us to observe animals firsthand and to learn about their habitats, zoos and aquariums have become a valuable and unique asset.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the month of June 1983 as Zoo and Aquarium Month.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 14th day of Feb., in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.

RONALD REAGAN