2011 Grant Finalists
Through the Zoo Boise Conservation Fund, Zoo Boise has $110,000 to grant to four incredible conservation organizations and we would like your help to decide which ones! Voting is open October 1 - 28, 2011. Please review the finalists and then vote for your two favorites in each category.
Category A
Finalist #1
- Cheetah - Cheetah Conservation Botswana
Finalist #2 - Javan Rhino - International Rhino Foundation
Finalist #3 - Lemurs- Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo
Finalist #4 - Orangutan - Orangutan Foundation International
Category B
Finalist #1 - Lewis's Woodpecker - American Bird Conservancy
Finalist #2 - Philippine Crocodile - Gladys Porter Zoo
Finalist #3 - Philippine Tarsier - Endangered Species International
Finalist #4 - Wolverine - Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness
VOTE NOW! Finalist #1- Category A
Evaluating Techniques to Reduce Conflict Between Cheetah & Farmers
Cheetah Conservation Botswana
Species Focus: Cheetah
Country,
Continent: Botswana, Africa
$29,000.00 requested
Many predators, such as cheetah, are on the brink of survival because they are forced to live near farming communities who kill predators to protect their livestock. As a result, cheetah numbers have declined by 90% in the last 100 years. Their survival depends on humans finding a way to live together with cheetah and other predators.
Many predator conservation groups often encourage rural people to use new farming methods that protect livestock and help reduce conflict; these include building better animal enclosures and using guards like dogs and herders. Such programs are showing promise, but, it is important to monitor their outcomes to make sure they work long term. To test them, Cheetah Conservation Botswana (CCB) has established a model farm which demonstrates how to practically use these techniques. CCB is also helping 20 farmers take up the new farming practises, then, to measure which methods are most effective and have the best conservation benefits, we want to monitor the progress of the farmers and evaluate the outcome of this project over three years. The aim is to find out if improving farming techniques effectively changes the way farmers live with predators and if the same techniques can also help improve farmers’ lives. Every three months CCB will interview farmers about their predator problems, livestock concerns and standard of living. They will also check the health of the farmer’s livestock and measure how many animals survive over the study period. This will help CCB measure any benefits that farmers’ get from the new techniques. Since our major goal is to conserve predators, CCB will also use automated cameras and GPS location collars to monitor what happens to cheetah in areas where farmers are using the new techniques. Objectively evaluating conservation programs is the only way we can be sure to keep doing work that is value for money and leads to a win-win outcome for predators and people.
Return to topFinalist #2 - Category A
Who's Your Daddy? Population Genetics of the Critically Endangered Javan Rhino
International Rhino Foundation
Species Focus: Javan Rhino
Country, Continent: Indonesia, Asia
$29,175 requested
Indonesia’s remote Ujung Kulon National Park (UKNP) holds the only population of the Critically Endangered Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus), with a range of 27-44 individuals remaining. Based on camera trap data, we believe there still may be 4-5 breeding females still left in the population, but the rest of the individuals remain unidentified with respect to sex and degree of relatedness.
Javan rhinos persist in UKNP because they are carefully monitored and guarded by the International Rhino Foundation’s (IRF’s) Rhino Protection Units, elite anti-poaching teams that patrol the park every day. The main threat is limited habitat in UKNP, as well as the population’s small size. A small population can be affected by demographic (e.g., distorted sex ratio, unstable age structure, reproductive failure) and genetic (e.g., drift, migration, selection, mutation) factors which can cause loss of genetic variation because of founder effects, genetic bottlenecks and inbreeding. They also are subject to catastrophic environmental disasters such as volcanic eruption and tsunami, and human-related disasters such disease transfer from domestic livestock. To meet such challenges, genetic variation and population size is important: individuals need genetic variation to be fit, healthy and vigorous so that they can reproduce for survival; populations need genetic variation to be fit, healthy and vigorous so that they can adapt to the challenges of a changing world.
The IRF has focused on two major strategies to conserve the Javan rhino: (1) expanding the useable habitat within UKNP, particularly in the eastern part of the park, by creating a 4,000 hectare research and conservation area and (2) ongoing intensive protection and management of the surviving population in the wild. Now, in light of its even more precarious status and our concern that no more than a handful of females are breeding, we need to determine each animal’s sex, degree of relatedness to other animals in the population, and reproductive status, if possible, to guide future management decisions, particularly around translocation.Return to topFinalist #3 - Category A
Lemurs Rebuilding Madagascar's Forest - Let's Doo-Doo It!Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo
Species Focus: Black & White Ruffed Lemur
Country,
Continent: Madagascar, Africa
$29,900 requested
Madagascar is the only place in the world where lemurs are found in the wild. Unfortunately, just 10% of the rainforests in which they live remain on their island nation. The loss of forest over the past three decades has caused an 80% decline in Black and white ruffed lemurs. Now this critically endangered lemur can only be found in isolated groups and its survival depends on the expansion and reconnection of these forests.
To help save this lemur, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo (OHDZ) and its Madagascar-based partner, Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership (MBP), are working with the community of Kianjavato in southeastern Madagascar. This is one area where the Black and white ruffed lemur still lives. The cool thing about this project is that the poop from the Black and white ruffed lemur is used to help restore the forests! How is this possible? Well, almost 90% of this lemur’s diet is fruit, which it eats whole, including the seeds. When the lemur gobbles up the fruit, the seeds are unharmed. OHDZ-MBP discovered that the seeds collected from the lemur’s poop grew better than “unprocessed” seeds. So in our unique reforestation project, we’re using seeds from the lemur doodoo to rebuild a lemur-friendly forest!
Since 2009 OHDZ-MBP has partnered with Kianjavato residents to grow these seeds in nurseries. School kids, parents, teachers, scientists and college students are working together to plant the seedlings into the gaps between the remaining forest fragments. Our goal is to plant one million trees in the Kianjavato area to restore forests for the Black and white ruffed lemur and other wildlife. Funding from the Zoo Boise Conservation Fund will help us build nurseries, provide salaries for nursery managers, plant trees and educate school kids and community members on how they can re-establish healthy forests.Return to topFinalist #4 - Category A
Helping Orangutans Return to the Wild: A Holistic Environmental Enrichment Program
Orangutan Foundation International
Species Focus: Orangutan
Country, Continent:Indonesia, Asia
$30,000 requested
More and more, Borneo's beautiful rainforests are being cut down, leaving many orangutans homeless. Mother orangutans are often killed and their babies are captured and sold as pets. Many orphaned orangutans are rescued by OFI and brought to our Orangutan Care Center.
Most orphans come to our Care Center injured, hungry and scared. Here they receive medical care, food, love, and training to prepare them for their release back into the wild. Orphaned babies need our special help until they are eight years old.
It is a happy day when we are able to release orangutans back into the wild where they belong! But before that can happen, young orphans must be fed and cared for and taught how to search for fruit and build treetop sleeping
nests. Their bodies and minds must grow healthy and strong.
Caring for more than 330 orangutans in our Care Center, and teaching them how to be wild, is an expensive, round-the-clock effort, requiring lots of food, medical supplies, and special materials and equipment. Every day our
orangutan helpers take the orphans out into the forest where they are free to play while learning how to survive in the wild. We call it Wild School!
When they're not in Wild School, our orangutans sleep and play together within enclosures. Making sure their enctosures are the right size and shape, and providing our orangutans with special food treats, toys, games, and
swings, ropes, and ladders is important to keeping our orangutans happy, healthy, and busy learning all sorts of new skills they'll need to survive in the wild.
Zoo Boise can help 330 orangutans to grow up big and strong and smart--ensuring their successful return to the rainforest, wild and free once again. Zoo Boise can help OFI save the orangutan from extinction!
Return to top
VOTE NOW!Finalist #1 - Category B
Making Room for Lewis's WoodpeckerAmerican Bird Conservancy
Species Focus: Lewis's Woodpecker
Country, Continent: United States, North America
$25,000.00 requested
The Lewis’s Woodpecker makes it nests in old ponderosa pines. These big and beautiful birds are important inhabitants of the forest because they create holes in trees that other animals use, and help control the populations of damaging insects like the budworm and tussock moth. However, the ponderosa pine forests in which they live face increasing threats like fire
suppression, which creates dense stands of the pines and makes them susceptible to bugs and disease. Also, because of unsustainable timber harvest, there are not enough old pine trees for the woodpeckers to make their nests in. ABC and its partners are working with private landowners on approximately 10,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest in Idaho, Oregon,
Washington, and Montana to help make homes and healthy forests for the Lewis’s Woodpecker and other cavity-nesting birds.Return to topFinalist #2 - Category 2
Fruit Trees for Philippine Crocodiles: Helping People and Crocs CoexistGladys Porter Zoo
Species Focus: Philippine Crocodile
Country,
Continent: Philippines, Asia
$30,000.00 requested
The critically endangered Philippine crocodile, Crocodylus mindorensis, is the rarest crocodile in the the world with an estimated population of less than 100 adults. It was hunted to near extinction during the 20th century, and those that remain are under threat from loss of habitat. Once widespread throughout
the Philippines, they now exist in only two small areas. One of these is northern Luzon, the site of this proposed project.
Since 2003, the Mabuwaya Foundation (Mabuhay = Long live, Buwaya = the crocodile) has been implementing a community-based conservation project, engaging locals to actively protect both crocodiles and their wetland habitats. As a result, the population has grown from 12 in 2000 to over 50 within three crocodile sanctuaries established by the villagers themselves.
Dinang Creek is one of these sanctuaries; it harbors five adults that produced three nests last year. People from the village Lumalog live along the creek and have accepted the crocodiles. They established a 10 foot "Do Not Disturb" buffer zone along the water, but in many areas there is no protective vegetation. Without plant cover, natural prey items of the growing population of crocodiles are less abundant - making it likely they will wander in search of food.
The goal of this project is to prevent crocodile-human conflict, keeping the villagers enthusiastic about the presence of crocodiles. Proposed activities include reforesting and reinforcing the buffer zone with beneficial fruit trees and bamboo. Since Lumalog villagers use the creek for washing clothes, bathing and drinking water, the construction of water pump stations will reduce the need for them to go to the creek. Pens and fences will be built to protect domestic livestock. Finally, the children of Lumalog will be involved in tree planting and their school will be assisted with educational materials and a bathroom.
Return to topFinalist #3 - Category B
Indigenous People Protecting the Philippine Tarsier and its Habitat, Philippines.
Endangered Species International
Species
Focus: Philippine Tarsier
Country, Continent: Philippines, Asia
$20,290.00 requested
The goals of our project are to save the vanishing Philippine tarsier, an emblematic endemic small primate to the Philippines, and protect and save its wild habitat throughout the unique involvement of the indigenous community. At the same time, the project will create new sustainable incomes for the B’laan indigenous tribe, one of poorest communities in the island of Mindanao in southern Philippines. Natural habitat destruction and illegal hunting threaten the survival of the tarsier. By protecting the habitat of the tarsier, it will also serve as a protecting umbrella for other endangered animals like the critically endangered Philippine eagle found in the area.
The project will provide education and awareness on the importance and benefits of conserving tarsier and other endangered species, assess the population distribution and size of the tarsier remaining in the wild, and set up the tarsier sanctuary, a natural reserve open to public that will protect viable population of the Philippine tarsier. In parallel, we will plant native trees to protect step hills from further erosion loss and reconnect tarsier habitat.
The tarsier sanctuary will serve as an eco-tourism center and regional hub for nature conservation. The center will be open to the public including school children and tourists, and will generate income from entrance fees that will directly benefit the B’laan tribe. Their denuded lands will be reforested to recover biodiversity, prevent further soil erosion and landslides, and to conserve watershed natural services. The project will have significant impact on the conservation of tarsier and its habitat, other endangered species, and the B’laan tribe.Return to top
Finalist #4 - Category B
Idaho Panhandle Wolverine Study
Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness
Species
Focus: Wolverine
Country, Continent: United States, North America
$29,70
0 requested
Wolverines (Gulo gulo) were recently classified as ‘warranted but precluded’ for listing as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). This means the FWS thinks wolverine survival is threatened, but does not have money to pay for their conservation. The ‘effective population’ (breeding females) of wolverines in the lower 48 states is only about 35. These few females need to den high in the mountains where snow stays deep well into early summer. Unfortunately, climate models predict warmer average temperatures are likely to make potential den sites disappear. Compounding this, denning wolverines seem to be very sensitive to human recreation. It is critical we identify current wolverine denning sites to help wildlife managers make decisions which will protect wolverine habitat.
Last winter Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness partnered with Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) to study wolverines in the West Cabinet Mountains. We put up ‘bait stations’ to photograph and obtain DNA samples from wolverines. Next winter Idaho Conservation League will join us as we expand our study across the Idaho Panhandle. We will put out ‘bait stations’ in late fall (after bears hibernate) to find out where wolverines ‘hang out’ and take photos of them. Then, biologists from IDFG will attach satellite tracking collars to females to locate their dens. The Forest Service will use this information in land management decisions including winter recreation planning.
We will invite the community to follow our volunteers’ progress through Facebook photos, website blogs, public meetings and newspaper articles, creating a public who care about wolverines. The data we collect will inform Forest Service policy decisions which influence wolverine survival.
A Boise Zoo Conservation Fund grant will help us expand this unique project which directly incorporates community conservation efforts into government wildlife conservation and management plans.Return to topVOTE NOW!