The Puget
Sound Chapter of AAZK (PS-AAZK), based at WPZ,
continues its vital mission to support conservation projects
all over the world. To accomplish this, PS-AAZK is actively
involved in pinpointing areas of immediate concern in conservation
projects conducted as nearby as the foothills of the Cascades
and as distant as the island of Madagascar off Africa's east
coast.
Last Year, the Puget Sound-AAZK sponsored
an Ecosystem Survival Parking Meter at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium,
and the Pueblo Zoo and the co-sponsored CES Marine Conservation
Parking Meter at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. The
Center for Ecosystem Survival (CES) signature Conservation
Meter program is part of an innovative fundraising campaign to
engage visitors to support critical habitat protection. Meters
sponsored thus far have raised $5,178.71 for the conservation work
being done in the Pantanal National Park in Brazil, the Talamanca-Biological
Corridor in Costa Rica, and Palau, Micronesia.
Another CES project that PS-AAZK supports
is Preserving Critical Wildlife Habitat in the Rincon Rainforest,
Guanacaste Conservation Area, Costa Rica. Funds provided by the
chapter go toward purchasing 4,500 hectares of forest that is home
to more than 30,000 plant and animal species. The ultimate goal
is to link the Rincon Rainforest with the already protected Guanacaste
Conservation area.
Locally, the chapter supports the
Loomis Forest Fund and also the Nature Conservancy of Washington
campaign to conserve Willapa Bay's Ellsworth Creek. The Ellsworth
Creek area is a mostly pristine estuary and watershed in southwest
Washington. The Ellsworth Creek effort would connect several pieces
of the low elevation old growth forests that have already been protected
through other projects.
In response to the eruption of a
volcano in Ecuador, PS-AAZK sent emergency relief funds to
assist with the care and housing of lowland tapirs evacuated from
the Banos Zoo. The chapter also provided financial support for conservation
biologist Patricia
Medici's project, Conservation Biology of the Lowland Tapir,
being conducted in the South American rain forest of Brazil.
The chapter covered the cost of
printing postcards of various lemur species to be sold at the Ranomafana
National Museum in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, to help
pay salaries for the local museum staff and to purchase more materials.
Another Madagascan project that PS-AAZK supports is a project
conducted by Luke Dollar, founder of the Carnivore Conservation and
Research Trust. This project examines the impacts of non-endemic
carnivore species on the behavioral ecology of Madagascar's largest
endemic predator, the fossa, a tree-climbing carnivore.
Over the past three years the
chapter has "adopted" a total of 10 hornbill nests in Thailand.
The chapter also sponsors an Indonesian national to attend the
3rd International Hornbill Workshop to be held in Phuket, Thailand,
and provided funds for the production of a sun bear captive husbandry
manual to be sent to Cambodia.
One of AAZK's goals is "to
support zoo and aquarium personnel in their roles as animal care
givers, scientific researchers, public educators and conservationists." The
Puget Sound Chapter of AAZK continues to dedicate volunteer
hours and energy to further this goal.
Conservation Organizations:
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