Zoo New England

Our HATCH turtle conservation program has been raising threatened turtles in classrooms for 15 years now. And it's WORKING! Learn how this award-winning program started and how it continues to make a difference (for turtles, teachers and future wildlife stewards!) on our Conservation Blog.

This group of volunteers did some amazing work with us last week. Thank you, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts! We're honored that so many of you chose to volunteer your time and elbow grease to keep Franklin Park Zoo looking so good. #ServiceDay2024

Tie-dye stations were a hit at this year's annual staff parties at Franklin Park Zoo and Stone Zoo! The colorful craft inspired many folks to wear their flair at the zoo—whether in the office, caring for animals or in the field tracking turtles. Looking good, team!

Our HATCH turtle conservation team is busy hatching and placing baby turtles in temporary homes in local classrooms. You know what that means… baby pictures! These tiny swimmers are Blanding’s turtles, one of the most threatened wildlife species in the northeastern United States. They have dark, high-domed shells with pale yellow flecks and long yellow throats and chins. They are wanderers, known for traipsing long distances across wetland and terrestrial habitats during warmer months, making roads and habitat fragmentation considerable threats. It's possible that fewer than 3,000 individuals of this relatively large and gentle freshwater turtle species remain in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania combined. That’s why Zoo New England is working with Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and a number of local agencies and organizations, to monitor and protect four different Blanding’s turtle populations around the state. Follow along with our HATCH turtle tales to meet more turtle species and watch them grow into yearlings and then head out into the wild next spring! In the meantime, learn more about our Blanding’s turtle conservation program→ https://lnkd.in/eykArSKA #ZNEConservation #conservation #turtles #HATCHturtletales

Our Conservation team spent the summer tracking a new (to us) species—and in their words "the season has been nothing short of amazing!" Keep reading about our work on the water studying diamondback terrapins in Buzzards Bay!

Keeper Natalie Selavka and Educator Peter Zampine Jr are teaming up to talk about African painted dogs and global conservation efforts to better understand and protect them in honor of World African Painted Dog Day earlier this week.

Congratulations to this year's winners of our annual Gilmour Memorial Scholarship, named for a former keeper at Franklin Park Zoo. Thanks to generous donors, these dedicated Zoo New England will be able to pursue exciting conservation projects and education opportunities —from volunteering to protect local wildlife in Africa, Borneo and Mexico to animal care and leadership workshops. Well done, we cannot wait to see how you will get out there to protect and advocate for wildlife near and far! More about the scholarship here→ https://lnkd.in/dK7C8cU2

It takes a village to save a species like the critically endangered Mexican wolf. Earlier this month, Zoo New England employee Summer Hoogenboom attended the annual Mexican Wolf SAFE meeting held at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. During the two-day meeting, Mexican wolf conservationists from the US and Mexico came together to discuss conservation challenges, successes, and future plans for preserving endangered Mexican wolves. It's through these international conservation partnerships and daily hands-on care for our lively pack of Mexican wolf brothers at Stone Zoo that Zoo New England is helping to bring this species back from the brink. Re-establishing the Mexican gray wolf population in the wild continues to be a slow and complex process, but we are unwavering in our commitment to the future of this rare wolf. Learn more about the Mexican gray wolf and efforts to protect this species?? https://lnkd.in/eHtiueSi

This time of year, our Field Conservation team is busy painstakingly collecting eggs from local turtle nests that we've been monitoring. These lucky babies will finish developing in an incubator, and then may come to a school near you! Hatchling and Turtle Conservation through Headstarting (HATCH) is Zoo New England's award-winning conservation-based education program focused on supporting and protecting local turtle species including Blanding’s, wood, spotted and snapping turtles. The baby turtles are raised in local classrooms with plenty of food and care over the winter before being released back into the wild next spring, bigger and stronger and with a better chance at survival. It all starts with monitoring the nests and collecting those eggs at the right time. In these pictures, you can see our team carefully excavating wood turtle eggs from Turtle #6017's nest, which happens to be at the base of the sign explaining our wood turtle conservation work. Then “candelling” the eggs confirms their viability; here you can see the blood vessels and the dark shadow of a baby turtle growing inside the eggs. Learn more about our HATCH program→ https://lnkd.in/evd9cdEM

Dinari is bringing his big cat energy to World Lion Day celebrations at Franklin Park Zoo today. We are also using this opportunity to introduce our conservation partners on the ground in Africa — Lion Landscapes. Over the last 50 years, lion populations in Africa have declined by 75% with only 21,000 individuals remaining. Habitat loss is a big issue, with over 50% of the remaining lions living in unprotected rangelands, shared with people and livestock. The Selous-Nyerere landscape in Tanzania is considered to be one of the last lion strongholds, and Lion Landscapes is working to introduce their community-led conservation initiatives to this region to protect lions and other large carnivores. More about Lion Landscapes here→ https://lnkd.in/e2v3RAPT