Zoo Knoxville announces $18m reptile and amphibian project - Blooloop

-

Zoo Knoxville has announced an $18 million project – The Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Campus (ARCC).

Construction is set to begin on ARCC, a 2.5-acre home for its amphibians and 12,000-square-foot reptile facility, in August.

According to Zoo Knoxville, ARCC will support the zoo’s “internationally recognised work with critically endangered amphibians and reptiles”.

The $18m development will also provide immersive educational elements focusing on STEM, and will include a new species of Cuban crocodiles.

ARCC will also feature a greenhouse that allows guests to watch herpetologists at work, and a large outdoor ecological habitat where children can collect specimens and take them back to the Adventure Lab to explore.

The attraction confirmed a joint $5 million gift from Jim Clayton and FirstBank. The amphibian area will be named the Clayton Family ARC Campus, while the reptile facility will be called the FirstBank ARC Center.

Zoo Knoxville’s herpetology team is internationally acclaimed and helped found the Radiated Tortoise SAFE programme, which is working in collaboration with conservationists in Madagascar to return rehabilitated tortoises to the wild.

“The use of the ARCC acronym for the new campus is a reflection of the role Zoo Knoxville has as a modern-day ‘ark’ and the work being done to save animals from extinction,” a press release stated.

The reptile and amphibian complex is just one element of the zoo’s master plan, which also involves renovating and upgrading large sections of the zoo – including a new habitat for its otters.

Zoo Knoxville’s master plan – otters, gibbons and tigers

The master plan was approved by the zoo board in 2014 and includes major improvements to visitor experience and animal habitats. Its goal is to double the annual attendance of Zoo Knoxville to 800,000 people by 2026.

A $10m habitat for Malayan tigers and gibbons opened in 2017 as part of the master plan. This was followed by new homes for the zoo’s gibbons and langurs.

Image: Zoo Knoxville/Facebook



http://bit.ly/2Uz5QgR

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All In The Family: Maine Mother & Son Charged in Massive Drug Bust

-
Image
corso dog :: Article Creator Woman Hospitalized After Attack By 2 Dogs At Same Edmonton Home Where Boy Died: Lawyer UPDATE: On April 15, 2024, the City of Edmonton provided an update on the fatal attack. It said that prior to the deadly incident on April 1, "the city had no lawful basis to remove the dogs from the home." The city added that "all prior complaints about the dogs involved in this incident were investigated thoroughly and appropriate action was taken in accordance with the applicable legislation." The city also said a review found that its staff "acted appropriately in accordance with our standard practices and in compliance with the relevant legal constraints given the nature of past complaints and reports." A woman was hospitalized after being attacked in February by two large Cane Corso dogs at the same home where an 11-year-old boy was killed last week, the woman's lawyer told Global News. "I...
Read more

Rare Frogs And Illegal Drugs - Palisades Hudson Financial Group

-
Image
Colombian conservationist Ivan Lozano has hit on a brilliantly promising strategy to protect his country’s rare and endangered amphibians. His plan: Flood the market with them. Lozano is not hunting rare frogs in Colombia’s Andean forests. He is raising them himself and selling them at prices designed to undercut poachers and smugglers. If he can raise the frogs cheaply enough, and in large enough numbers, he might manage to drive down the market price to the point that poachers no longer find it worthwhile to harvest and smuggle the creatures onto the black markets. Lozano told The Associated Press that his company also encourages collectors to breed their own frogs. Picture yourself as a poacher. If the government toughens the legal penalties and steps up enforcement, you will shrug your shoulders; legal risks are a basic cost of doing business. Since the demand for your product already exists among foreign collectors and other buyers, tougher enforcement merely reduces supply a...
Read more

Burn scars, winter storms threaten rare and endangered species in San Gabriel Mountains - The Bakersfield Californian

-
Image
LOS ANGELES — Up until a few weeks ago, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River was one of the most abundant wildlife habitats in Los Angeles County, a secluded and rugged area defined by its steep peaks, lush canyons and mixture of rare and endangered species. Recently however, a team of federal biologists and forest rangers was aghast when it visited the stream following the Bobcat fire, which has burned more than 115,000 acres in the heart of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Terrain that once resembled a High Sierra granite gorge now looked like ground zero after a nuclear explosion, and the usually clean mountain air was sharp with the stench of smoke. Particularly unsettling were the bare and ashen slopes that were now primed to dissolve under pounding winter storms. A heavy mudslide, experts said, could reverse decades of conservation efforts by inundating the last outposts for such federally protected species as the Santa Ana sucker fish and Southern California m...
Read more