Quick winning principles
- Pair each animal with a sponsor card sharing its tag before playing.
- Break rating by 1–2 points to trigger conservation at maximum efficiency.
- Build enclosures that match animals in hand, not animals on the board.
- Use the X action only when all three slots have high-value plays.
Ideal strategy
- 1
Card pairing: reptile sponsor plus reptile animal plus large enclosure scores 12+ VP in two actions.
- 2
Conservation projects: time rating break when two projects are affordable—double VP in one round.
- 3
Zoo layout: adjacent enclosures with shared icons reduce action cost for repeated tags.
- 4
Action row: sponsors and animals on the same turn waste less than splitting across rounds.
- 5
Card economy: draw three when hand is empty; discard sponsors only after animal is played.
- 6
Endgame: two conservation projects plus full zoo row beats card draw without enclosure synergy.