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NCAA rhino collaring 2025

by Tim L. Tetzlaff, What Will They Say of Us
Director of Conservation,
Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens

ver recent years, I’ve wrestled with some of my favorite Over the last six years, I’ve been working with the leadership of
quotes. In 1904, our gardens founder Dr. Henry Nehrling Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority to support black rhino
Owrote that, "It is high time to protect and preserve what conservation in its famed crater. Facing a poaching onslaught that
is still left in Florida." I once put that on dropped its rhino population from ten thousand to mere dozens,
t-shirts for the zoo. As an appreciator of Tanzania had to stop the bleeding. That was crucial. But a healthy future
language, I had been struck by a 1906 quote isn’t an isolated population with no poaching. It's the grander vision
by William Beebe, even had it on a t-shirt we’re pursuing of a restored landscape where rhinos can once again move
when I was a teenager: “The beauty and naturally throughout the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem.
genius of a work of art may be reconceived, Closer to home in Florida, our own Florida Wildlife Corridor
though its first material expression be faces similar challenges. The good news here is that most of the lands
destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet not under government protection are in agriculture. If they stay in
again inspire the composer, but when the agriculture, we keep our corridor. Over the last year, I’ve met with dozens
last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another of people and various groups working those lands to explore what they
heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.” need to keep working lands working. Coming alongside them will be
And Theodore Roosevelt, who had visited Nehrling’s garden in key to not only protect what we have but to help restore the abundance
central Florida, told the nation in 1907 that, “the conservation of of our lands.
natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that Recovery is a complex and daunting effort, even for the vision posted
problem it will avail us little to solve all others.” on my door: “Don’t think big. Think bigger.” It requires more than
This salvo that opened the twentieth century was answered by simply expanding the same tools, as essential as those remain. It means
many hands. Across the decades, numerous international treaties bringing more people into conservation conversations and supporting
were enacted. Ivory trinkets and leopard fur coats faded from fashion. and learning from those already walking the new path. It means
Laws were passed. Rivers flowed cleaner. Smog cleared from the skies understanding human behavior as carefully as we study wildlife. It means
over cities. That a Florida panther still wanders the pine flatwoods is breaking down “us versus them” thinking to stand shoulder to shoulder
a local testimony to those efforts. to rebuild what has been lost.
Yet, we inherited less. Our vision must be greater. Our methods must be greater. And
Even as we launched ourselves into the Space Age at Cape our collaborations must be greater still. It is work we are committed
Canaveral, Floridians witnessed the last of their Ivory-billed to — but what we pass along to our children’s children will depend on
woodpeckers, Caribbean monk seals, and too many others breathe no many more hands joining to meet that challenge. I hope you’ll join with
more. As eminent wildlife biologist George Schaller observed, "We us. The words they speak of us at the end of this century will be the
cannot afford another century like this one." testimony to those efforts.
Nehrling’s vision to protect what remains is essential, but it is no If you’d like to chat about joining and seeing where you’d fit in, reach
longer enough. Indeed, despite Roosevelt’s caution, the lands and out to tim@napleszoo.org.
natural resources we depend on are not as they once were. Floridians Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit
know this all too well. While the world’s population quadrupled caring for rare species and welcoming families in a century-old historic
in the last century, Florida’s skyrocketed twentyfold. Our call is to garden. Since 2015, the zoo has invested more than $4.5 million
return the abundance that once filled our skies, waters, and lands. in saving plants and animals in the wild and fully supports 35 field
conservation staff working in seven countries.
www.napleszoo.org/conserve
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