Even the most optimistic among us would have to admit that we continue to put rapidly increasing pressure on the earth’s biodiversity. Our planet is host to an immense variety of wild animal and plant species. Two of the many things they provide us are aesthetic inspiration and the opportunity for scientific discovery.
The North Carolina Zoo has, for years, sought to make the most of these provisions with their Field Conservation Program, which contributes to the maintenance of the world’s biodiversity and explores the intricacies of nature – while recognizing the interdependence between people and their natural environment.
The program’s projects promote conservation of earth’s ecosystems through management and protection of wildlife and wild places, education, training and field research. Both here in the state and abroad, program staff members from the zoo work directly with others to create partnerships that help to preserve our natural heritage throughout the world.
The projects are as large as elephant tracking in West Africa using satellites, to protecting endangered sunflowers right in the zoo’s backyard.
For more than 12 years, the zoo’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Mike Loomis, has worked to conserve wild elephant populations in Cameroon, West Africa, through the use of sophisticated satellite tracking technology that monitors elephant movement there. His collected information identifies and helps protect important elephant habitats.
Additionally, the information helps conservationists intercept migrating elephant herds before they reach farmlands, preventing conflicts between elephants and the local farmers.
The Cross River gorillas of the rugged highlands on the Nigeria-Cameroon border in West Africa are the most critically endangered of all the African apes and one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world. Hunting and habitat loss have dwindled their population to about 300 gorillas. In 2007, the N.C. Zoo began a conservation project that uses advanced computer mapping technology to help save the remaining Cross River gorillas. A year later, the zoo established two computer mapping facilities there in Nigeria. Dr. Rich Bergyl, the zoo’s curator of conservation and research, worked with local wildlife conservationists there to set up the facilities and train them in the mapping.
The Albertine Rift, near central Africa in a deep valley between some of the continent’s highest mountains, is home to about 5,800 plant species – many endangered and some found nowhere else in the world. In order to safeguard the Rift’s plant diversity, the zoo is helping to build a botanical garden, the Tooro Botanical Garden, which is developing into one of Uganda’s plant conservation centers.
Working with American and international conservation groups, the zoo has helped with the overall design of the garden and is providing training for the staff there in the collection and maintenance of botanical specimens.
Closer to home, the zoo’s regional projects support research on, and conservation of, our state’s vast array of plant and animal species – from field surveys of threatened salamanders to the management of unique plant communities.
In 2007, the zoo received a grant to conduct studies on the state’s mountain populations of hellbenders, North Carolina’s largest species of giant salamanders. Survey teams spent hours wading and swimming in cold mountain waters looking for their elusive study subjects. During 2008, zoo staff members additionally trained more than 20 volunteers in hellbender field research techniques.
Other ongoing projects include the study of the fragile and unique habitats found on central North Carolina’s Ridges Mountain and the rescuing of the Schweinitz’s sunflower from expanding roads in the state’s Piedmont region. Partnering with the N.C. Dept. of Transportation in 2007, the zoo began managing a 56-acre tract on the lower slopes of Caraway Mountain that has become a refuge for these rare sunflowers that are often endangered by road widening and paving. Still other projects include forest-health monitoring, a collaboration between regional high schools and the N.C. Zoo, and active conservation and research programs right on the zoo grounds.
All these diverse initiatives are united by three common goals: the protection of endangered species and habitats, improving people’s lives, and connecting North Carolina residents to the natural world.
Tom Gillespie lives in Trinity and is a journalist and public affairs specialist at the North Carolina Zoo. For more information on the zoo’s plant and animal collections, special events and education programs, go to their Web site at www.nczoo.org
