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One of the Animal Kingdom’s bats
For all my from-childhood into-adulthood love of the fantasy worlds of Disney, the Animal Kingdom is rapidly becoming my favorite Disney World park. I know I haven’t actually visited Disney World yet, but just based on the things I’m learning about the Animal Kingdom’s dedication to conversation, the environmental and animal activist in me joins with my love of Disney to make me a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom.
Recently the official Disney parks blog posted a round-up of all the ways the Animal Kingdom has in the past year promoted conservation, education, and research. It’s a blatant attempt to promote the park and thus get more visitors and/or further monetary support, but because I’m completely behind the Animal Kingdom’s mission, I can’t help but spread the stories revealed there.
I’ve already looked in-depth at the Disney scientists traveling to Africa to study elephants or save orphan gorillas, but the post lists many other stories I want to mention. It wouldn’t surprise me if in the future I’d want to take a deeper look at some of them as well.
Let’s start with the Animal Kingdom’s hands-on conservation efforts. Late January 2010 saw the birth of a baby white rhino to the park. This is a huge deal; not only are all species of rhinoceros endangered, but the white rhino is especially rare. Births anywhere of white rhinoceros contribute to the global effort to repopulate/conserve them, so by successfully breeding them Disney is part of an important movement to save an endangered species.
Unseasonably cold weather in March made a serious threat to the recently-hatched endangered baby sea turtles making their way to the oceans for the first time. The temperatures also threatened adult sea turtles who are not used to or prepared for the cold.
Conservationists from the Animal Kingdom joined the movement started by Florida Fish and the Wildlife Conservation Commission to rescue the sea turtles, taking in several to the park. Many of the turtles were injured or suffering from illness. Animal Kingdom experts were able to rehabilitate the turtles and then release them back into the wild later in the year.
In addition to taking part in direct conservation missions, the Animal Kingdom also uses the thousands of visitors streaming in through the gates of Disney World every day to educate the public about global wildlife. Right now the Animal Kingdom is taking advantage of Halloween festivities to put a public spotlight on their bats.
Every year around Halloween the Animal Kingdom does their annual physical examinations of the bats, and they use this time to teach guests, who can see the bats every day, about the often-misunderstood mammal’s important role in the ecosystem.
The Animal Kingdom also takes advantage of another special day – in this case, World Oceans Day – to set up a stand at The Seas with Nemo & Friends to teach families about coral reefs and the threats they face, about the many kinds of whales and how some of them are now endangered, turtle habitats, and more.
Walt Disney Corporate also has its own commitments to conservation. It funnels many of them through the Animal Kingdom, but it also contributes at least thousands of dollars every year to worldwide conservation efforts, including this past year’s donation of $7 million to Project World’s Forests.
For more information on the Animal Kingdom’s many conservation projects, check out the Walt Disney Public Affairs conservation site, the official Animal Kingdom website, or better yet, take a trip to the park on your next Disney vacation.
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*(This image by Waremonger is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
