Our Conservation & Research team works year-round on valuable projects here at the Zoo and out in the field. They are also actively involved in community engagement, raising awareness about the importance of wildlife and habitat conservation. Here's a round-up of what this team has been up to in 2022!

  • 4 tree swallows banded, including 3 young

  • 8 occupied nest boxes containing at least 36 eggs from three species 

  • 1 pair of nesting chimney swifts with 4 young

  • 27 media interviews

  • 16 Dakota skipper butterflies released into the wild

  • 191 endangered Poweshiek skipperling butterflies released into the wild

  • 77 conservation presentations and webinars

  • 600 million base pairs of a completed Poweshiek Reference Genome

  • 46 Poweshiek skipperling genomes sequenced

  • 23,055 registered Beluga Bits users to date

  • 6,383,188 total Beluga Bits classifications

  • 9.702 tonnes of carbon offset from flights and fuel used during fieldwork

  • 89 hours, 47 minutes, and 57 seconds of underwater beluga video footage 

  • 1,235 minutes of butterfly surveys performed on a total of 94 surveys

  • 185 hours of polar bear observational data collected

  • 39 polar bear fur samples were analyzed to understand hair growth

Learn more about our conservation projects here.

Consrevation Specialist in the field with a Poweshiek skipperling

Conservation team on the Beluga Boat in Churchill