Category: Conservation Efforts
Conservation and sustainability are at the heart and soul of all of our Oklahoma City Zoo team members. Recently, OKC Zoo leadership announced the first-ever Conservation and Sustainability Heroes. The OKC Zoo values team members who are committed to caring for, connecting with and conserving wildlife and wild places, and created this internal program to annually recognize personnel who engage in acts that directly impact conservation and sustainability. While every employee at the Zoo is...
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Tuesday, September 3, 2019
McKinly Dortch is a senior Environmental Science major at Oklahoma State University. This summer, she served as the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden's sustainability intern. She documented efforts to help remove plastic waste and other debris from Zoo Lake.
For the second time this year, OKC Zoo employees came together to clean the debris, much of it single-use plastic, out of Northeast Lake (also known as Zoo Lake). The housekeeping team led the lake clean-up and many...
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at Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Monday, August 26, 2019
McKinley Dortch is a senior Environmental Science major at Oklahoma State University. This summer, she served as the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden's sustainability intern. Dortch documented her work assisting in internal waste audits.
Growing up in Edmond, some of my favorite memories were playing in creeks and being in nature. Fast forward to college I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I kept coming back to wanting to do something for the environment. There are...
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at Monday, August 26, 2019
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
The Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden wants YOU to kick your single-use plastic habitat as part of a global “Plastic Free July” challenge. Plastic items like grocery bags, straws and coffee cups are creating huge ecological harm, especially in oceans and other aquatic habitats. This includes our streams, rivers and lakes in Oklahoma where plastic trash is a common sight.
As of July 1, the Zoo’s 145-member “Plastic Free July” team is in 12 th place out...
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at Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Monday, April 15, 2019
OKC Zoo Assistant Birds Curator Holly Ray shares her conservation field work experience rescuing flamingos in South Africa...
In January, a severe drought dried out Kamfers Dam which is located in Kimberly, South Africa. Kamfers Dam is a very important breeding site for lesser flamingos, it is the location of one of only four lesser flamingo breeding sites in Africa. Due to the lack of water at the dam, adult flamingos abandoned their nests leaving nearly 2,000 eggs and flamingo...
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at Monday, April 15, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
While it is certainly true that many species of birds in North America fly to warmer climates when the temperatures begin to drop, there are still many more that stay at their homes year-round! This February, I was lucky enough to join three Zoo employees and three employees from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) on a conservation journey to Robbers Cave State Park and James Collins Wildlife Management Area in Eastern Oklahoma...
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at Tuesday, March 12, 2019