Conservation
Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society exists to inspire people to act on behalf of wildlife and the natural world.
Palm Beach Zoo’s ultimate goal is to be joined by our community in protecting and restoring wildlife and wild places. We accomplish this by providing information, opportunity and most importantly creating the feeling of agency to those we engage to act for nature.
Our conservation focus includes fieldwork, onsite conservation initiatives, offsite conservation projects, and green sustainable business practices. Additionally, we fund international programs for species important to the AZA and are represented by animals at our Zoo.
Although most of our efforts are focused on Florida, the conservation opportunities (threats) that underlies most of our work is the restoration of habitats focused on wildlife corridors and pollinator and avian habitats and the quality of water from wetlands to coral reefs.
Looking at broad concepts of connectivity, water, and native pollinator areas, Palm Beach Zoo is now primed to work and fund conservation initiatives that approach these ideas (anywhere in the world), attach to animals at our Zoo that visitors can see, and possess measurable and meaningful outcomes. Those conservation initiatives that staff participate in also must be local South Florida programs that have high impact and high-profile partners.
CEO Margo McKnight advanced our commitment to conservation by requiring a dollar from every admission to be earmarked for conservation beginning in April 2019. That meant the Zoo restricted more money to fund conservation efforts locally and around the world.
Since 2016, PBZ has been more involved in local conservation initiatives than ever before. We now have five programs that are staffed by PBZ employees.