page_title: Toronto Zoo
section_title: Conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Toronto Zoo / Conservation
caption_attribution_description: English: African Penguin
context_page_description: The Toronto Zoo is a zoo located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Encompassing 287 hectares, the Toronto Zoo is the largest zoo in Canada. It is divided into seven zoogeographic regions: Indo-Malaya, Africa, Americas, Tundra Trek, Australasia, Eurasia, and the Canadian Domain. Some animals are displayed indoors in pavilions and outdoors in what would be their naturalistic environments, with viewing at many levels. It also has areas such as the Kids Zoo, Waterside Theatre, and Splash Island. It has one of the most taxonomically diverse collection of animals on display of any zoo; it is currently home to over 5,000 animals representing over 500 species. The zoo is open to the public every day of the year except December 25.
  The zoo is a corporation owned by the municipal government of Toronto. Founded by Hugh A. Crothers, an industrialist who became the first Chairman of the Metro Toronto Zoological Society in 1966, the zoo opened on August 15, 1974, as the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo. The word "Metropolitan" was dropped from its name when the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was amalgamated into the current city in 1998.
context_section_description: The Toronto Zoo makes considerable effort to conserve endangered species from around the world with the help of other accredited zoos. Captive breeding is often considered one of the most difficult and elusive rewards of captive animal care, but the Toronto Zoo's efforts have been met with much success, and even resulted in the re-introduction of many species.
  Some of the conservation initiatives that the Toronto Zoo has participated in are as follows:
  The Toronto Zoo was the first zoo to establish a captive-breeding program for black-footed ferrets with the goal of releasing them back into their wild habitat and, after years of successful breeding, had released more than 120 animals by 2011. This included re-introducing the ferrets, which had been extinct in the wild, to Saskatchewan's Grasslands National Park beginning in 2009.
  The zoo has rescued orphaned polar bears from the wild: two in 2001, later named Aurora and Nikita and one in 2003, later named Inukshuk.
  In 2008, the Toronto Zoo participated in 2008 Year of the Frog, where researchers were sent to study a deadly fungus causing problems to amphibians and reptiles worldwide.
  The Toronto Zoo has acted and continues to act in the captive breeding, and re-introduction into the wild of critically endangered and otherwise threatened Canadian species, including the Vancouver Island marmot, loggerhead shrike, and Blanding's turtle, as well as Great Lakes fishes. The zoo also runs a program for habitat preservation within the Great Lakes Region, focusing on the protection of endemic species of freshwater mussels. In the past, the zoo contributed heavily to increasing the numbers of threatened species, including the wood bison and the trumpeter swan.
  The Toronto Zoo has actively contributed to international conservation efforts and reintroduction programs, including for the Puerto Rican crested toad, and for fish in the African Great Lakes (including the Singidia tilapia, or ngege).
  The zoo has bred additional rare Ontario species such as the redside dace and eastern massasauga rattlesnake.
  One zoo staff member has been key in preservation of critically endangered Malagasy freshwater fish species, both at the zoo and in Madagascar.
  The Toronto Zoo has been collecting and recycling cell phones since 2006. In 2010, it was awarded the distinction of being the top cell phone recycler out of the Eco-Cell's 175 participating wildlife organizations in North America. Other participating wildlife organizations include the San Diego Zoo and the Philadelphia Zoo. Coltan is a mineral ore mined and refined in central Africa for metals used in the cell phone industry. This unregulated mining industry has a dramatic impact on the region's biodiversity. Recycling cell phones helps to preserve the critical Lowland gorilla rainforest habitat in Africa by decreasing the demand for these minerals. This is of particular interest to the Toronto Zoo as its gorilla habitat has expanded with the addition of a newly born baby gorilla. The Toronto Zoo's cell phone recycling program is composed of two parts: Retrocell is the zoo's official cell phone refurbisher and the Ontario Electronic Stewardship Program processes the remainder of the phones that are collected by the Toronto Zoo.
  In addition, the Toronto Zoo also participates in, and has been a key centre for, the Species Survival Plans of dozens of species, maintaining healthy captive populations of animals which may one-day be re-introduced to their former homes. Some notable SSP species the zoo has successfully bred over the years include the western lowland gorilla, Sumatran orangutan, golden lion tamarin, Sumatran tiger, Amur tiger, snow leopard, cheetah, Przewalski's horse, Indian rhinoceros, Matschie's tree-kangaroo, African penguin, and Komodo dragon. The Toronto Zoo has bred hundreds of species, with many of these breedings being firsts for Canada, North America, and even the world.
caption: African penguins at the Toronto Zoo. The species is one of several endangered species that the zoo has successfully bred over the years.
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