What do the Belize Zoo, the Palm Beach Zoo, and ASR/BSI have in common? Well, they're trying to preserve wildlife corridors, to allow animals to freely move around the country, without fear of crossing the roads or being knocked down. And that's why today, the three entities officially established a collaboration to further the work that's already been started, particularly in the Maya Forest Corridor. Today Courtney Menzies went to the Zoo and learned more. Here is that story.
The Belize Zoo may be one of the smallest in the world, but it's making some big partnerships. Today launched an official collaboration between TBZ, ASR/BSI, and the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society.
The three entities have one major thing in common: a desire to preserve wildlife corridors and connectivity. For our Zoo, they've been maintaining conservation in the Maya Forest Corridor for some time, and today, the director explained why it's important to get ahead of infrastructure development.
Celso Poot, Director, TBZ
"We at the Belize Zoo are focusing on the George Price highway and the need for wildlife crossing with the upgrade that is coming up for the George Price Highway, we want to ensure that the George Price Highway does not serve as a barrier to wildlife movement. We've seen it happening with the John Smith Road, we've seen it happen with the Coastal Plain Highway even though it has some wildlife crossing, their not adequate so we want to make sure that we're ahead of the game when it comes to the construction and upgrade of the George Price Highway that is has the optimum structures in place for wildlife."
"If wildlife are not crossing the road, you're creating these isolated population, you're leaving them prone to disease, I mean one disease comes and wipes it out if you don't have genetic diversity."
And the three partners are using what they call flagship species, like jaguars and the Florida Panther to highlight the challenges wildlife face.
That led to ASR/BSI officially adopting Ben the Jaguar, who was being tracked as a wild cat in the Cockscomb Basin for many years before he began attacking farm animals, which forced the farmers to capture him.
Now, he lives happily at the zoo, and BSI is hoping to create corridors in the north of the country, and to lean into more sustainable agricultural practices.
Mac McLachlan, Country Manager, ASR/BSI
"We're looking at conserving over 3,000 acres of wetland in the north of the country. We also have developed training manuals for cane farmers on how to respect the biodiversity while learning regenerative agriculture practices so if you look after the biodiversity you're helping to look after the whole ecosystem that helps such wonderful animals such as jaguars that we see in the zoo to survive and it shows a great healthy effort to try and maintain the equilibrium between humans and animals."
"It's a very proud moment for our company president who visited today to the Zoo and during that visit, this is somebody who cares passionately about jaguar preservation, was very honored to received a certificate from the Belize Zoo, a certificate of adoption for the wonder jaguar Ben who's had such a tough life and we've had such a great good fortune to meet Ben, reasonably close and personal, not too close, so we're really grateful to Belize Zoo for that really great honor."
And in Palm Beach, Florida, the president of their Zoo and Conservation Society is hoping that Belize doesn't follow in their footsteps:
Margo McKnight, President/CEO, Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society
"I think it's so important and it's so possible now to actually create this wildlife corridor that is so important. This zoo is right in the middle of that corridor and now you've got an agricultural industry, you've got a zoo that engages everyone that comes through their gates to think about the wildlife and make connections with it and then you have the zoo as an actual conservation entity, looking at what is it going to take to move animals safely from one side of the road to the other and make sure this connectivity is essentially in perpetuity."
"As we develop property and don't consider where wildlife need to move, we create islands, so we're trying to fix that in the United States by creating connectivity after the fact, you have an opportunity here to never have to go backwards and do it and this little stretch of highway is key."
And at the launch today, ASR/BSI also donated $20,000 to the University of Belize's soil lab, and announced that they will be funding trips for the children of cane farmers to visit the zoo, to learn about the animals they are helping to save.
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