Recent Conservation Highlights
With a firm belief that what is best for people and wildlife is the same thing in the long run, Naples Zoo strives to support conservation efforts that reflect this mutual benefit.
Naples Zoo's mission incorporates inspiring the conservation of our planet's wild areas and their wondrous inhabitants. For the wisest use of limited funds, Naples Zoo places priority on supporting proven conservation efforts within existing long-term programs regionally and internationally. (MAP)
Conservation Actions You Can Take.
Want to do more for conservation? Learn about supporting Naples Zoo and all our conservation and education efforts including ones like you see below.
Naples Zoo is a member of the Brazilian Ocelot Consortium. This consortium provides training and education to our zoo counterparts in South America to help them care for their ocelots.
BOC Members also have the responsibility of caring for Brazilian ocelots outside the wild in future years. The Zoo is on the waiting list to welcome purebred Brazilian ocelots. Through this organization, the Zoo also funded reforestation and planting of 50,000 trees in the Atlantic rainforests in Brazil.
Nationwide, Naples Zoo is one of the top four funders of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Conservation Endowment Fund.
Grants from the fund are issued annually for conservation projects and research to benefit animals in zoos and in range countries from orangutans in Batang Toru Forest to toads in Wyoming.
Madagascar: Helping Luke Dollar Save Fosas
In coopeation with Nat Geo explorer Dr. Luke Dollar, Naples Zoo helped fund educational posters, stickers, and lambas (multipurpose cotton cloth) that educate about the benefits to farmers of healthy fosa populations since fosas hunt pigs that destroy crops and rats that foul stored foods. Video of Dr. Dollar at Naples Zoo.
Naples Zoo has funded two pilot programs to provide efficient stoves to 200 families living near Madagascar’s Ankarafantsika National Park. Nicknamed “rocket stoves,” they can reduce fuel needs by 50 to 90%. This reduces deforestation in this critical habitat area for fosas and lemurs. Rocket Stove Video
Madagascar: Lemurs and Beyond
The Zoo is a Managing Member of the Madagascar Fauna Group, an international consortium dedicated to conservation. The MFG reintroduced black and white ruffed lemurs to the wild.
The MFG cares for animals confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade, teaches sustainable agriculture practices, educates locals on conservation, and patrols and does research in a strict nature reserve. The MFG's Saturday School program has dramatically improved academic success. Naples Zoo funds a Saturday School in the village of Sahambala. Great music in this fun video about Parc Ivoloina, the zoological garden and agroforestry station operated by the MFG.
Madagascar: Staff Support
Naples Zoo Director of Conservation Tim Tetzlaff serves as an active advisor to the Madagascar Fauna Group, coordinates online activity, and fulfills a liaison role between inquiries and field staff. The Zoo also funded and took donations for a new roof for an education center expansion.
In gratitude to Nat Geo Explorer Dr. Mireya Mayor, the Zoo provided funding to Centre ValBio outside Ranomafana National Park. Spearheaded by Dr. Patricia Wright who discovered the golden bamboo lemur, Centre ValBio is a research facility that helps locals protect their wildlife while also creating ecologically sustainable development.
Association of Zoos and Aquariums
Zoo staff have served the greater Association of Zoos and Aquariums conservation community through committee service including Public Relations and Conservation Education Committees.
Zoo Director David Tetzlaff currently serves on the Field Conservation Committee to further enhance the larger zoo community’s commitment to conservation in the wild.
The Zoo also participates in Species Survival Plans and Population Management Plans to care for animals in and outside the wild.
Critically Endangered Philippine Crocodiles
In gratitude to conservation biologist Shawn Heflick, Naples Zoo funded the Mabuwaya Foundation to help the Philippine crocodile. (Mabuwaya is a contraction of the Filipino words Mabuhay, welcome or long live, and Buwaya, crocodile).
The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Crocodile Specialist Group considers this species to be one of the most severely threatened crocodile species in the world.
Lions in Africa
Disappearing in Plain Sight: While still readily seen in National Parks, lions have lost 80% of their historic range.
To help our planet's remaining lions, Naples Zoo supports the organization Panthera and their partner programs like the Lion Guardians that train Maasai warriors to protect lions instead of hunt them and provide additional training to protect livestock. See the challenges and solutions in this Lion Guardians video (13 min).
Learn more about the plight of Africa's king of beasts online and in person at the Zoo's lion habitat.
Cheetahs in Namibia
The Cheetah Conservation Fund's work to save the wild cheetah and its wilderness habitat is successful because it works on all aspects of the cheetah's plight, through education and public outreach, applied conservation biology and management, public policy, and science and research.
While CCF's main headquarters are in Namibia -- the country with the largest number of wild cheetah, its reach and vision are worldwide. In addition to its own program in Kenya, CCF assists in training and sharing program successes in countries like Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Iran and Algeria.
Desert Lions in Namibia
The desert-adapted lion is an important flagship species for tourism in Namibia. As local communities have to bear the costs of living with lions, there is a need for sustainable-use of lions through eco-tourism, with tangible benefits to the people, and for proactive management of human-lion conflicts. The Desert Lion Conservation Project was started by Dr. P. Stander in 1998. As accurate monitoring is critical, Naples Zoo provided remote cameras to aid in this work following a visit to Namibia by the Zoo's Executive Director and Director of Conservation.
Tree Planting
Naples Zoo offsets its environmental impact and far beyond by funding the planting of trees in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Working with an non-governmental organization that coordinates with local communities who want the trees and will nurture them, the Zoo supports the planting of tens of thousands of trees each year.
Asia's Tigers
Naples Zoo funds conservation efforts through the Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS has a long history with tigers including funding George Schaller who conducted the first wild tiger research. Joe Walston, Director of Asia Programs for WCS, states, "The support that Naples Zoo is providing to WCS is greatly appreciated and is immensely useful. The funds were used by our WCS-Malaysia Program to help the Government of Malaysia put well-trained and well-equipped rangers on the ground to protect one of their last tiger populations."
Helping African Colleagues
In order to assist our zoo and aquarium colleagues in Africa achieve their conservation and education missions in their countries, Naples Zoo is a patron supporter of the African Association of Zoos and Aquaria (PAAZAB) They have 70 member in 12 countries.
PAAZAB sees one of the primary functions of zoos and aquariums as healing the relationship between man, animal and their mutual environment.
Healthy Aquatic Life
Naples Zoo is a national Seafood Watch partner distributing free Seafood Watch cards to help consumers identify the best fish to eat for healthy fish and healthy oceans. Download a current card.
And to help fishermen in Madagascar know which fish species in the river are endangered and should be returned to the water and not placed into the cooking pot, Naples Zoo helped fund an educational poster that was distributed on the island.
Florida Panthers
Naples Zoo has hosted an annual Save the Panther Day event since the 1990s and has supported numerous efforts over the years.
The Naples Zoo Conservation Fund purchased 70 remote high-speed trail cameras to help in the long-term monitoring and recovery efforts of these endangered cats on Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.
Capacity Building and Beyond in Latin America
Naples Zoo is a member of the Zoo Conservation Outreach Group. This nonprofit coalition is dedicated to promoting wildlife and habitat conservation throughout the Americas by developing conservation leadership capacity in Latin American zoological institutions. (13 minute video about cooperative Andean condor project.)
ZCOG provides numerous scholarships to Latin American colleagues in the zoo community to receive training in the United States which they can share back at their home institutions.
Naples Zoo is a member of the Butterfly Conservation Initiative (BFCI) to assist in funding projects to protect rare and endangered butterflies in North America.
The Zoo also features a National Wildlife Federation certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat to illustrate how you can provide a home for wildlife where you live, work, and worship.
Conservation and You
With a firm belief that what is best for people and wildlife is the same thing in the long run, Naples Zoo strives to support conservation efforts that reflect this mutual benefit.
Naples Zoo's mission incorporates inspiring the conservation of our planet's wild areas and their wondrous inhabitants. For the wisest use of limited funds, Naples Zoo places priority on supporting proven conservation efforts within existing long-term programs regionally and internationally. (MAP)
Conservation Actions You Can Take.
Want to do more for conservation? Learn about supporting Naples Zoo and all our conservation and education efforts including ones like you see below.
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