Brevard Zoo Conservation Report 2016 | Page 31

Partner Spotlight International Iguana Foundation Giant Armadillo Project Cheetah Outreach On the Honduran Bay Island of Roatán, the Zoo’s grant funds have helped the International Iguana Foundation perform research on the nesting habitats of endangered, endemic Roatán spiny-tailed iguanas. Radio telemetry and ground-penetrating radar have been used to identify and protect critical nesting habitat. Our support has helped fund monthly field expeditions, GPS tracking units and veterinary supplies for the 2015 Whitley Award-winning Giant Armadillo Project, the very first long-term ecological study intended to protect elusive, nocturnal, burrow-dwelling giant armadillos in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands. Grant funds that are provided to Cheetah Outreach are used to protect South Africa’s wild cheetahs by promoting livestock guard dogs as an alternative to lethal predator control via poaching. This initiative has already resulted in about 250,000 hectares of newly cheetah-safe farmland in South Africa since 2005. Sarasota Dolphin Research Program Coral Restoration Foundation Hornbill Research Foundation Sarasota Dolphin Research Program is the world's longest-running study of a dolphin population. Studying dolphins throughout seasons and throughout their lives has helped provide insight on how to protect them. These studies aid conservation efforts, not only for dolphins in Sarasota Bay, but for dolphin populations around the world. Due to multiple stressors in the late 1970s and early 1980s, dominant reef building corals in the Florida Keys and Caribbean declined dramatically and faced local extinction. Coral Restoration Foundation creates offshore nurseries and restoration programs. Through pioneering propagation techniques, tens of thousands of corals are grown and maintained before strate