Animal Care and Education Coordinator Zoo Med Labs
With each New Year comes the tradition of reflecting on the past year and looking forward, making “resolutions” and plans for the future. These resolutions often have to do with personal health, wealth, and other goals.
This year, consider the health of our planet and survival of many of our world’s incredible species as you make your New Year’s Resolutions. This issue of The Vivarium and Aquarium News is meant to inspire you with a conservation theme to learn new ways that you can help protect the species that need our help.
There are so many different aspects of conservation and as pet keepers, we can play a vital role in the preservation of many species. Habitat and biotope preservation are essential for maintaining wild populations of many plants and animals. While many factors are often out of our control, the good news is, there are many things we can do to help the plight of threatened and endangered species.
Keeping and caring for pets is a great way to educate and inspire people to learn about their pets’ wild counterparts and do what they can to protect them. Many terrarium and aquarium species breed readily in captivity.
As a reptile breeder or herpetoculturist, producing captive bred offspring can be very rewarding and help relieve pressure from wild populations. In some cases, viable breeding populations may only exist in captivity and occasionally, only in the hands of private keepers and breeders. Creating and maintaining these “assurance colonies” is a vital aspect of species conservation that many individuals and organizations can participate in. Zoo Med Labs is proud to contribute to conservation efforts for numerous species. Zoo Med is a major sponsor of the Turtle and Tortoise Preservation Group (TTPG), the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), the International Iguana Foundation (IIF), and the United States Association of Reptile Keepers (USARK).
These organizations participate in a wide variety of conservation efforts including educating and inspiring current and future reptile keepers, providing habitat rehabilitation, conducting field research, and creating and managing captive assurance colonies to help ensure the survival of threatened species. Additionally, Zoo Med works with several different endangered species in our breeding facility and have been able to successfully hatch a few in 2014 including: Yellow Blotched Sawback Turtles (Graptemys flavimaculata), Forsten’s Tortoises (Indotestudo forstenii), and a Spiny Hill Turtle (Heosemys spinosa). While you usher in the New Year, I would like to encourage you to find out how you can be (or maybe already are) contributing to conservation efforts and make the most of 2015!
We would love to hear your story.
Share Your Story
The Vivarium Issue 1 Vol. 3 Winter/Spring 2015
Pick an Issue to Read
- The Vivarium Issue 1 Vol. 3 Winter/Spring 201505 Feb 2015
- The vivarium - Issue 3 / Volume 205 Nov 2014
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News - Issue 2 / Vol 2- Spring / Summer 201424 Jun 2014
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News - Issue 1 - Vol 227 Feb 2014
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News - Issue 4 - Vol. 101 Nov 2013
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News : Issue 3 - Vol 131 Jul 2013
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News - Issue 2 - Vol. 115 Apr 2013
- The Vivarium & Aquarium News - Issue 1 - Vol. 111 Jan 2013