Dr. Jo-Elle Mogerman loves it when someone shows her their Zoo Keys.

For those who don’t know: In 1960, the Philadelphia Zoo started giving out animal-shaped plastic keys to visitors. Guests would take their Zoo Keys to different exhibits and put them in little audio boxes to unlock recorded messages about giraffes, tigers, gorillas, etc. Zoo Keys were one of those Philly things — if you knew, you knew. They were beloved, and after the Zoo discontinued the Zoo Key program in 2007, they brought it back to local fanfare in 2019 .

Mogerman, the Zoo’s president and CEO since 2023, spent most of her life in Chicago and the Midwest, but she quickly learned to appreciate Philly nostalgia. She remembers sitting at the airport a year or so ago, talking with a woman who was about her age, who sa

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