How The Jacksonville Zoo Is Working To Save Florida’s Native Species

Florida has become an abundantly popular destination thanks to its balmy weather, world-class amusement parks, and renowned vacation destinations ranging from Miami to Pensacola, but it’s not just humans that call the Sunshine State home. From alligators to flamingos to the elusive Florida panther, the entire peninsula is teeming with all sorts of fascinating flora and fauna, many of which are found nowhere else on earth.

While Florida is a bastion of biodiversity, humans are wreaking havoc on Florida’s native species, with large-scale land development and fertilizer-filled water runoff being just a few issues that threaten the state’s fauna. In the wake of this long-standing environmental crisis, what can be done to mitigate the damage caused to Florida’s native wildlife populations? Just ask the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, an AZA-accredited institution that’s home to over 2,000 different animals housed across more than 115 acres of land.

While the Jacksonville Zoo is involved in over 45 different conservation initiatives across the globe, one particular venture focuses strictly on one of the most iconic aquatic mammals found in the state of Florida. Launched in 2017, the Manatee Critical Care Center works in tandem with government agencies and fellow zoos across the state, with more than twenty successful rehabilitations and releases since the end of 2021. Noted for their easygoing nature and lack of fangs, claws, or other self-defense mechanisms, there’s a vast array of issues that bring manatees into the rehab center.

“This time of year, cold stress is the main problem, and up in northeast Florida we get cold stress more than anything else,” says Craig Miller, Curator of Mammals at the Jacksonville Zoo. “We’re busier in the winter time, but we’ve definitely had our share of boat strikes, and also entanglements. An animal we just released yesterday was a crab pot rope entanglement case. Across her pectoral flipper, she had a rope that had been on there for weeks if not months. It was dug in there, she was dragging five crab pots.”

And while Miller has seen scores of successful rescues and releases over the past few years, manatee populations are facing a cataclysmic crisis that was first recognized in 2021—an unusual mortality event, or UME. Though there may be multiple factors contributing to this loss of life, Miller notes that dwindling food stocks are making it more difficult for manatees to sustain their body weight through the seasons.

“On the east coast of Florida along the intercoastal waterway, the main food source for manatees is sea grass,” says Miller. “Over the years, this grass has been dying due to algal blooms, and last winter it kind of came to a head. Hundreds of manatees died in the Indian River Lagoon—that started last winter and it’s still going on. We’re seeing thin manatees even through the summer. They’ll leave for warm waters, and most should have found good food after leaving, but we’ve still found a couple of cases of thin manatees. They haven’t been able to recover.”

A federal initiative to feed wild manatee populations during the winter has been launched in Florida, but in the meantime, the zoo’s role in rescue and rehabilitation becomes more important with each passing day. Florida is home to just five acute care facilities for imperiled manatees, and the Jacksonville Zoo is the only one located in the northeastern part of the state. As conservation experts work to find a solution to the UME, each rescued manatee could play a crucial role in the future of this beloved species.

In addition to manatees, the Jacksonville Zoo is also devoted to a wealth of Florida’s lesser-known species. Case in point—the striped newt, a native Floridian amphibian that was believed to be extirpated from Apalachicola National Forest. For these particular creatures, the main cause can be traced back to humans yet again, with land management driving newt numbers down.

“Striped newt ponds need to be ephemeral ponds, and burns are essential to allowing ephemeral ponds to exist,” says Cayle Pearson, Assistant Curator of Herps, Birds, and Others at the Jacksonville Zoo. “Natural burns would come through and burn any hardwoods and larger trees that take over landscapes. As burns have been prevented due to humans managing land, those hardwoods come in and take over the waterways that would be ephemeral ponds.”

It’s a massive undertaking to reintroduce these newts to their native home, but fortunately, the Jacksonville Zoo isn’t alone in their efforts. Working in tandem with the US Forest Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Crawfordville-based Coastal Plains Institute has made it their mission to create temporary ephemeral ponds for the tiny amphibians. Once a site has been identified, the group clears any intruding hardwoods and puts down a plastic tarp to retain water, ultimately creating a breeding ground that’s free from any predatory fish that would feast on the newts’ eggs.

As Apalachicola National Forest is being outfitted with new ponds, the Jacksonville Zoo is busy breeding their own amphibians to fill them with. The zoo released 2,099 striped newts into the ponds in 2020, and while this breeding initiative has been operating yearly since 2012, Pearson and his colleagues hope to see a fully sustainable wild striped newt population in the near future.

“Right now there are three primarily zoological organizations that have been producing for release, and Jacksonville Zoo was one of the first,” he notes. “The ultimate goal, of course, is to not have to take any newts out there again, and they’ll start taking care of themselves. Hopefully we’ll get to that point someday and this program will be wiped away to let us focus on another one, but until then, we’ll keep working as hard as we can.”