San Diego Zoo Global, the parent organization of the Zoo and Safari Park, announced Wednesday that it is changing its name to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
The new name better reflects the organization’s focus on conserving and interconnecting animal and human health, said CEO Paul Baribault.
“We started asking ourselves: ‘Do we really present ourselves as we want as an organization? Are we emphasizing the right priorities? ”He said. “We realized that the name San Diego Zoo Global was not really, fully describing our work.”
That work includes wildlife conservation projects around the world. According to Nadine Lamberski, head of wildlife conservation and health, the organization is gradually making these projects more collaborative between conservationists and surrounding communities. He cites as an example work in northern Kenya, where local residents run an elephant sanctuary and perform routine laboratory tests.
“Community involvement and community skill building is really the biggest emphasis we want to have in the future,” Lamberski said. “We are ticking all the boxes – wildlife, people and the ecosystem with this ‘one health’ approach.”
Projects like this one will be more prominent at the Zoo and the Safari Park; the two facilities receive 5 million visitors a year.
Although the new name is not due to the pandemic, Lamberski says that COVID-19 has highlighted the inextricable relationship between humans and wildlife. The new coronavirus jumped from bats to people (perhaps after passing through another species), and the researchers say surveillance of wildlife will be key to detecting and responding to future viruses with pandemic potential.
“The pandemic has been a wake-up call,” he said. “We really want to consolidate our efforts to protect nature and safeguard biodiversity, which will really help prevent not only future pandemics, but other crises that exist, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity. All these things are related to the health of wildlife, the health of people and the health of our planet.
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