Director Julia Wilder on ZDR3's 2024 response season

Written By Julia Wilder
A headshot of ZDR3 Executive Director Julia Wilder, a white woman with blue eyes and long blonde hair. She wears a black shirt with the ZDR3 logo on the front. She is looking into the camera and smiling.

Director Julia Wilder

Dear ZDR3 Network supporters and MOU holders,

The 2024 hurricane season has proven to be an extraordinarily intense one, and ZDR3 has been busy supporting those who have requested assistance. We’ve been activated for almost three straight months, which included assisting the evacuation of a facility threatened by wildfires in California, responding to facilities impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and providing support for the placement of hundreds of animals at the request of a closing institution. As we continue to focus on hurricane recovery work, I want to explain what our communications strategy will look like going forward. 

Our community has made it clear they want more communication from ZDR3 about what incidents we’re responding to in real-time, and it’s important to me that we find a way to do that. During response, we have to triage our communications resources and personnel in order to ensure we’re accessible and responsive to all the individuals involved, which includes the leadership at impacted facilities, our deployed response teams, other response groups and NGOs, and any governmental or regulatory entities with relevant involvement. Fielding all those necessary connections has meant that, in the moment, communications with our wider audience isn’t something our small team has had the bandwidth to prioritize. 

I’ve decided to change that. I want our supporters to know what we’re doing, and how they can help. It’s important for the exotic and wild animal industries to have a window into what response and recovery looks like from the ground, and why it’s so crucial to do it right. This post is the start of our new ZDR3 blog: in the busy season, we’ll use posts here to keep you updated on our active responses. We’ve also got a lot of interesting stories about our responses and educational content planned for the off-season. 

ZDR3 provided both on-scene and remote response to multiple facilities in Florida impacted by Milton, most of which is currently finished. All deployed teams have returned to their home facilities. While we continue assessing our hurricane season activities and start to assemble after action reports, ZDR3 continues to provide remote recovery assistance to multiple facilities, including the Peace River Wildlife Center in Punta Gorda. I’m looking forward to telling you their story in an upcoming post, as well as more about our earlier responses this season. 

Julia Wilder with a Santa Ana Zoo responder discussing wildfire evacuation planning.

Direct Julia Wilder with Big Cat Habitat responders

ZDR3 Board President Michael Fouraker with responders from Myakka Elephant Ranch and Palm Beach Zoo

I want to send a huge thank you out to everyone from all the facilities that have deployed, been on standby, responded remotely, and donated resources to support our response activities this season. The type of assistance our MOU holders have provided is crucial for helping impacted facilities stabilize and resume operations, and we know that many of our network members who volunteered their time did so despite their own facilities having been impacted as well. As a community and as an industry, we are truly stronger together. We look forward to acknowledging these facilities and their teams in future posts.

Financial support during response is essential to allow us to keep rolling, and we thank those individuals, institutions, and groups that facilitated our success in 2024.

  • Battle Creek AAZK

  • Cape May County Zoo AAZK

  • DE Webworks

  • Dallas AAZK

  • Endangered Primate Foundation

  • Maci Matherne on behalf of Global Wildlife Center

  • Keystone Safari

  • Little Turtle AAZK

  • Lupa Zoo

  • Memphis AAZK

  • Puget Sound AAZK

  • Southwick’s Zoo

  • Tigers for Tomorrow

  • Wildlife World Zoo

  • Zoo Montana

  • Zoo World

  • Betsey B.

  • Diane Olsen

  • Eleanor S.

  • Illia C.

  • Jimmy & Melyn Wittenborn

  • John & Anita Monroe

  • Jonathan K.

  • Marida B.

  • Marlene Delonne Living Trust

  • Susie Ellis, in Honor of Michael Fouraker

  • Tammy S.

  • The Ferguson Family

  • The Street Family

  • Val H.

  • Virginia Wenner

  • William & Jody R.

Respectfully,

Julia Wilder
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ZDR3 Response Activities in 2024