The second week of October was a busy one for us at Green Jungle. Not only did we have planning meetings for our upcoming Green Photo Tours (Details to be released soon!), and a lot of travel, we also had a talk in Wichita Kansas for the 5th annual national conference of the ZAA (Zoological Association of America).
Our goals of this talk was simple. Present our project for the very first time to a public audience, get feedback, and fine tune our talk.
The ZAA mission is to promote the responsible ownership, management, and propagation of animals in both private and public domains. They are a young organization with a growing number of respectable zoos being added to their ranks on a daily basis.
While they have had some growing pains, we feel the ZAA is an ideal organization for our project to work with. Their objectives are to:
- Establish professional standards for husbandry and animal care practices.
- Maintain accurate animal and medical records.
- Enhance the survival of species by the use of appropriate methods.
- Maintain an appropriate, safe, and quality existence for animals in captive environments.
- Establish safety measures for staff, visitors and animals to prevent injury and disease.
During our talk we released plans to build a Central American/North American Co-op based on the responsible international trade of captive wildlife. While we didn’t go into great depth at this time (we only had 45 minutes to talk), our captive breeding programs, photo tours, water quality tests, and biosurveys seemed to get a warm reception from the 50 or 60 zoo directors and employees in attendance. In fact, we talked to multiple directors interested in taking part in almost every aspect of our project!
With an open thinking on the future of conserving wildlife and ecosystems, we feel the ZAA is on track to become an established, well-respected professional organization, and we are proud of their interest in Project Green Jungle.
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