I'll go ahead and start. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs is heavily involved in conservation efforts both with local species and in a global sense. The zoo raises awareness for and provides funding for dozens of programs and participates in 2 major breeding and release programs.
Let's start with the big ones:
- Captive breeding and release of black-footed ferrets and Wyoming toads. Ferret kits are currently going through check-ups to see if they are fit for release and recently, hundreds of toad yearlings were released to their natural habitat. These two programs are combined as one for funding reasons including for Quarters for Conservation (I'll talk more about this later).
- CMZ has developed and released a free palm oil shopping app that has a bar code scanner that can automatically tell you if a product uses sustainable palm oil farming practices. In addition, CMZ is a major force in convincing companies to join the RSPO and commit to using only sustainable palm oil in their products. Most recently with Nestle being suspended from the RSPO, the zoo has launched a social media campain as well as a write in station in their Primate World exhibit so that people can voice their concerns directly to Nestle.
- The zoo partners with the Tsavo Trust program and sends funds to them yearly. This program funds aerial surveillance in Tsavo National Park in Kenya to monitor wild elephant and black rhino populations and search for poaching activities in the park. The zoo funds this program through Quarters for Conservation and through their daily elephant and rhino feedings where half of all proceeds go to the program.
- The zoo sends staff yearly to Uganda to move Nubian giraffe to new areas of protected parks so that populations do not become isolated. Vet staff, keepers and managers have all made the trip. The operation includes catching giraffes, checking their health, applying GPS trackers, and physically moving them across barriers such as rivers or human development that is causing issues for the population.
- The zoo also donates money to cape vulture conservation and Panamanian frog conservation through Quarters for Conservation.
Quarters for Conservation is an initiative that the zoo started 10 years ago and has since raised over $2 million for these programs by itself. This money does not include money the zoo donates from its annual budget or through extra purchases such as elephant and rhino feedings. The program works by taking $0.75 from each admission and putting it into a Quarters for Conservation fund. Guests then get 3 tokens that they can use to vote for which of the 6 conservation projects they want to support. Based on the percentages that each program gets, that amount of money is taken from the fund and given to the respective program.
In addition, the zoo has a yearly vote for members to choose what programs they wish to support. These programs are different than the Quarters for Conservation programs and change yearly. Based on what program receives the most votes, each program gets a certain amount of money that can reach into the 10s of thousands of dollars. One example is the work the zoo does with the Andean Bear Foundation. For the past 2 years, the zoo has sent staff to Ecuador to capture and fit mountain tapirs with a radio tracking or GPS collar. The information is being used by the Andean Bear Foundation to better understand the species and their habits. CMZ even used their own tapirs as test subjects to make sure the collars fit properly before taking them out to the field. This was 100% funded through the member votes of the past couple years.
All together, if going by the 2016-17 annual report, the conservation initiatives are equal to about 5% of the zoo's total operating budget. But coming from one of only 10 AZA institutions that receives zero tax support, that is significant money as the zoo is basically breaking even most years.
Sorry if that was long. I think this is a great topic idea for people to boast about conservation accomplishments and to advertise some of the lesser known things that zoos do for global conservation.
