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Elephant tusks are some of the most valuable commodities on Earth for poachers engaged in the illegal ivory trade. Tens of thousands of elephants are killed for their tusks each year to be valued on a global scale. The U.S. remains one of the world’s largest importers of ivory. The illegal ivory trade is more than just devastating for elephant populations. Funds from the trade enable the trafficking of illegal drugs and firearms. The trade is also highly sophisticated, with poachers using their own technology to avoid detection.

This is Mei Lan. He was born on September 6, 2006, and was the first cub of Lun Lun and Yang Yang born at Zoo Atlanta.  As part of our giant panda loan agreement with China, in 2010, Mei Lan was sent to Chengdu, where he joined the resident population at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.  Since Mei Lan’s arrival in Chengdu, he has fathered his own cubs at the Research Base! 

Our partnership with Conservation South Luangwa is a significant step toward a goal of increased leadership in African elephant conservation for Zoo Atlanta.

Mountain gorilla silverback Pato has been followed since birth by trackers and scientists working for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. He is the son of legendary late silverback Titus and lives in one of the mountain gorilla groups that the Fossey Fund monitors every day in Rwanda’s Volcanoes Mountains. He has an important role in leading his group, helping to keep them safe every day.

Golden lion tamarins are endemic to a small area in Brazil’s Atlantic Coastal Forest, with only 2 percent of their habitat remaining. Due to habitat loss and more historically, the pet trade, there were an estimated 200 golden lion tamarins living in the 1970s. This led to the development of a comprehensive conservation program that includes habitat protection and restoration, translocation of wild animals to safe forest habitats, a successful cooperative breeding program in zoos, reintroduction of zoo-born GLTs, and an education outreach program. Zoo Atlanta is partnered with the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, a Brazilian non-governmental organization, to conserve the tamarins ... Continue reading Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation

Ogden, one of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center’s diamondback terrapin patients who was hit by a car in 2011, was found nesting this year! This is just one example of the amazing work that the Center does and that Zoo Atlanta is proud to support.

This is an indigo snake you can visit at Zoo Atlanta. This snake is part of an amazing success story to reintroduce this important species back into the Conecuh National Forest in Alabama – a place it had not been seen since 1954.

Mountain bogs are one of the Southern Appalachians’ most critically endangered habitats, home to species found nowhere else, such as threatened bog turtles, state-protected montane purple pitcher plants and federally-threatened swamp pinks. The Zoo Atlanta Horticulture Team assists the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and The Nature Conservancy in mountain bog restoration. Michaux’s Sumac In addition to bog restoration efforts, the Horticulture Team also assists in safeguarding some of Georgia’s rarest plants. The Conservation Action Resource Center’s (ARC) living roof is a safeguarding site for Rhus michauxii, a critically endangered dwarf sumac.

High in the mountains of Panama, the golden frog used to be able to be seen waving to other frogs in the cool streams. Unfortunately, this frog is believed to have been extinct in the wild since the early 1990s.

More than 2,000 species of frogs, salamanders, and their relatives are in real danger of extinction. Conservation breeding programs are the only realistic hope for many species at this time, especially those suffering the effects of rampaging diseases such as chytridiomycosis.