Toronto Zoo - Conservation

Conservation

The Toronto Zoo makes considerable effort to conserve endangered species from around the world with the help of other accredited zoos. Breeding captive wild animals is a difficult challenge, but has resulted in the re-introduction of many species.

Some of the conservation initiatives that the Toronto Zoo has participated in are as follows:

• The Toronto Zoo was the first zoo to establish a captive-breeding program for black-footed ferrets with the goal of releasing them back into their wild habitat, and had released more than 120 animals by 2011.
• The zoo has rescued polar bears from the wild. Two in 2001, later named Aurora & Nikita and one in 2003, later named Inukshuk.
• In 2008 the Toronto Zoo participated in 2008 Year of the Frog, where researchers were sent to study a deadly fungus causing problems to amphibians and reptiles worldwide.

The Toronto Zoo has been collecting and recycling cell phones since 2006. In 2010, it was awarded the distinction of being the top cell phone recycler out of the Eco-Cell's 175 participating wildlife organizations in . Other participating wildlife organizations include include the San Diego Zoo and the Philadelphia Zoo. Coltan is a mineral ore mined and refined in central Africa for metals used in the cell phone industry. This unregulated mining industry has a dramatic impact on the region's biodiversity. Recycling cell phones helps to preserve the critical Lowland gorilla rainforest habitat in Africa by decreasing the demand for these minerals. This is of particular interest to the Toronto Zoo as its gorilla habitat has expanded with the addition of a newly born baby gorilla. The Toronto Zoo's cell phone recycling program is composed of two parts: Retrocell is the zoo's official cell phone refurbisher and the Ontario Electronic Stewardship Program processes the remainder of the phones that are collected by the Toronto Zoo.