Chimpanzees make more the 30 calls, the most common of which can be heard up to 2km away.
Conservation Programs
Our Place in Conservation.
In 1995 zoological institutions worldwide collaborated in the preparation of the ‘World Zoo Conservation Strategy', a document designed to focus zoos' efforts in conservation. The Strategy identifies both in situ and ex situ roles for zoological institutions in conservation.
The Strategy stresses that, where there is still hope, the conservation potential of the zoo community will be aimed primarily at supporting the conservation of natural habitats and ecosystems.
The Taronga Conservation Society Australia contributes to the conservation of biodiversity through a range of activities spanning various Programs at Taronga and Western Plains Zoo. Principally, these are recognised as;
- Education activities with a conservation focus,
- Captive assurance programs which are long-term breeding programs of endangered species held in captivity;
- Recovery and protection of species in the wild, including "release to the wild" programs and in-kind support and funding for wildlife conservation
- Stewardship, which is the environmental management of our properties for conservation,
- Conservation biology research projects, and
- Infrastructure support for the above programs
Zoos involvement in this kind of in situ conservation may be through a Global Partnership, or by participation in a State or Federal Recovery Program. These partnerships and programs usually embrace habitat restoration, research and education, as well as more conventional zoo roles such as captive breeding and small population management.
Where such in situ conservation is no longer possible, when, for example, the threatening processes cannot be managed, the Strategy underlines the importance of within-zoo species conservation until such times as suitable habitats can be restored or created and maintained. This kind of ex situ conservation effort requires long term genetic and behavioural management, and are usually planned to run for a 100 or 200 year period. Such long term programs are expensive to manage and require collaboration both within the Australasian region, and globally between regions. Priority is given to Threatened Species, with the long term goal of managing all threatened taxa in zoos as insurance populations against catastrophic decline in the wild.
These are the two, often complementary, planks of the Taronga Conservation Society Australia's goals in conservation. Research, especially if it involves institutional resources, is aimed at furthering conservation according to these priorities.
Another important, but more passive, role for zoos is in Education and advocacy. More than a million people a year visit Taronga Zoo and, hopefully, interpretive material encountered in Sydney will have an indirect benefit on species recovery somewhere much more remote. Indeed, education and advocacy might, in the long run, be the most important role for zoological institutions.
