Regional Response Readiness Workshops

These 2-day workshops allow personnel from different facilities to establish relationships that evolve into collaborative preparedness.

Participants will meet ZDR3 personnel and learn:

  • how to develop disaster response teams to support other zoological facilities impacted by a disaster

  • how to strengthen your own facility’s response capacity

  • about ZDR3’s disaster response planning specific to the region, and how to be more involved

  • how teams from different facilities can complement each other's strengths

  • how preparing to respond to other facilities can help enhance a facility’s own planning and preparedness needs

  • areas to consider in facility planning and preparedness based on lessons learned from ZDR3’s response activities

Workshop participants take what they learn back to their home facility to share and utilize for incidents they need to manage, and to be better prepared to assist other facilities facing their worst day.

The zoological industry has always embraced the spirit of peer-to-peer support. The connections and engagement we witness at workshops among industry professionals eager to enhance their disaster preparedness and response skills are truly inspiring. Requests for disaster response workshops have increased as word about their usefulness spread. 

“It was a really great opportunity to get in touch with colleagues in an environment that is conducive to growing. Everybody wants to help.”

- Zoo Horticulture Technician

“A lot goes into preparing. We want to make sure that we, at any given moment, are ready to respond.”

- Zoo Safety and Security Manager

“I learned about all the background work that people don't think about, and that there's definitely more things that I can do personally, and training that's available.”

- Zookeeper

Past Workshops

  • Regional Response Readiness: Region 6

    April 2024

    FEMA Region 6, hosted by Texas State Aquarium
    Corpus Christi, TX

    Participants: 40 attendees from 21 zoological facilities and 3 FEMA regions

  • Regional Response Readiness: Region 5

    January 2023

    FEMA Region 5, hosted by Columbus Zoo & Aquarium
    Columbus, OH

    Participants: 65 attendees from 39 zoological facilities and 7 FEMA regions

  • Regional Response Readiness: Region 4

    August 2023

    FEMA Region 4, hosted by Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens
    Jacksonville, FL

    Participants: 40+ attendees from 16 zoological facilities and 4 FEMA regions

  • FEMA Regions