04
September
2018
|
16:09 PM
America/New_York

Happy National Wildlife Day from ZooAmerica!

Today is National Wildlife Day!

At ZooAmerica, while we take in orphaned, injured and endangered animals, we also believe in helping our local wildlife. Click through the photos above to see how ZooAmerica raises and releases a rare butterfly and helps to encourage barn owl and kestrel nesting in the surrounding counties.

2017 was our 7th season for the Regal Fritillary project. During the summer of 2017, we collected 12,000 eggs from 7 females. From those eggs, 10,000 caterpillars were produced. 7,500 were released as hatchling caterpillars at various sites and 2,500 were overwintered at ZooAmerica. From the caterpillars, 66 adult butterflies were released. There were also adult butterflies found at the caterpillar release sites, indicating that many of the released caterpillars survived! Our 2018 season is underway and staff is busy collecting eggs from the current females in our laboratory.

In the past, ZooAmerica has made and hung over 40 barn owl boxes in the surrounding counties. This year, there were 3 active nests and 10 wild chicks were banded in conjunction with the Environmental Center at Milton Hershey School.

ZooAmerica also monitors kestrel boxes on Milton Hershey property. This year there were 11 active boxes and 36 chicks were banded in conjunction with the Environmental Center at Milton Hershey School.