The Annual Congress of the EAZA It is the main meeting between professionals from the world of zoos. For five days, there are multiple sessions, some more general and others more specific. In them, experiences and knowledge are shared in addition to planning and developing joint actions that affect our work the rest of the year.
In these conferences the main protagonist is the development of wildlife conservation plans and actions. More than half of the presentations and working groups are focused on conservation, merging conservation in the field (insitu) with conservation in captivity (exsitu) in the philosophy driven by IUCN “One Plan Approach” in which all efforts in the field or in captivity are coordinated to seek synergies.
In this sense, EAZA has presented the next joint conservation campaign focused on conserving biodiversity in Vietnam, one of the hot spots for diversity and conservation problems. There is also an important part of work on animal welfare. Scientific methods for evaluating well-being that allow us to continuously improve the care of our animals.
And of course, this meeting is the perfect opportunity to meet, in person, all those colleagues with whom we maintain frequent contact via email and to establish new useful contacts for work.
One of the aspects that most distinguishes working in a zoo is the incredible willingness of all institutions and professionals to share their experiences and knowledge to improve the well-being of the animals we care for and the success of conservation programs.
At Bioparc Fuengirola we coordinate the Tomistoma crocodile European Exsitu Program (EEP) and I, as its coordinator, gave a presentation on the situation of this program in the 'Reptiles' session.
In this edition, 887 delegates from 372 institutions and 70 countries participated. Without a doubt, a great meeting to continue progressing in the conservation and protection of species.
Jesús Recuero, technical director and veterinarian
Bioparc Fuengirola
