New England Conservation Organizations Form New Collaborative
to Make Greater Impact on Local Environments
“New England Zoo & Aquarium Conservation Collaborative” Aims to Foster Regional Partnerships to Improve Local Conservation Efforts

Representatives from six New England conservation organizations convened at Roger Williams Park Zoo late last month to explore how to make a greater impact on the region’s environment by forming new partnerships for ongoing conservation efforts.   The formation of the group, recently named the New England Zoo & Aquarium Conservation Collaborative , marks the first such collaborative conservation effort in New England. 

In addition to Roger Williams Park Zoo, the Collaborative currently includes participants from:  Zoo New England, Buttonwood Park Zoo and Boston Museum of Science in Massachusetts; Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut; and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (NHFG).  Several other New England zoos and organizations are expected to join the Collaborative in the near future.

“There’s a lot of great conservation work being done all around New England by zoos, government agencies and other conservation organizations,” said Louis Perrotti, Conservation Programs Coordinator at Roger Williams Park Zoo.  “The goal of this collaborative is to really open up communication between us all.  If we can put our heads together to identify some of our region’s most pressing conservation issues and also take a comprehensive look at what each of us is doing already then we can really begin to work together to multiply our efforts.  We can make a much greater impact working together than as individual institutions.”

The group, which met for the first time last spring, has already begun working together to support its first project, the Karner Blue Butterfly Habitat Restoration Project undertaken by NHFG.  The project seeks to bolster the local population of this federally endangered butterfly by restoring its pine barren habitat as well as its main food source, the wild blue lupine plant, in Concord, NH.Roger Williams Park Zoo has been working with NHFG to propagate lupine for the restoration site since 2002; the zoo also began rearing Karner blue butterfly larva last summer to supplement NHFG’s own supply for release at the site.  The project will see a huge increase in support for the next field season, as each of the other Collaborative participants have now agreed to begin propagating lupine as well, providing a great many more plants for NHFG’s restoration efforts.  This also allows Roger Williams Park Zoo to focus its efforts solely on the rearing of larva, intensifying that aspect of the project as well.

“This is a great first step for [the Collaborative],” Perrotti says.  “Hopefully we can duplicate our partnership on this project in many others efforts in the future.”  To do this, the group’s next steps include having a presence at the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference to be held in Mystic, CT next April.  There, they hope to form new working relationships with federal and state biologists.  The group also intends to review state wildlife conservation plans, which identify state conservation priorities, and use these as a tool to choose where their next efforts are best put forward.

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