PRESS ROOM

ROYAL OAK, Mich., 

The Detroit Zoo will be hopping with “amphibiphiles” when amphibian care staff from zoos around the country – as well as Haiti, Chile and Canada – convene for the annual Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) Amphibian Management School Feb. 26 through March 2.

The training course will highlight current research on captive amphibian behavior and ecology, techniques for assessing environmental and husbandry factors affecting welfare, management and exhibit design, and identification and resolution of welfare issues.

“Participants will leave here with greater knowledge about amphibians, new skills to help ensure that amphibians are receiving great care and are thriving at their institutions, and ways to help wild amphibians around the world,” said Scott Carter, chief life sciences officer for the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS).

Drawing on expertise from the AZA’s Amphibian Taxon Advisory Group, the training includes presentations and hands-on activities to expose students to the care of amphibians in zoos and aquariums.

The five-day training course will conclude with a field trip to the Belle Isle Nature Center to survey mudpuppies – a large, permanently aquatic, native Michigan salamander. The DZS regularly monitors mudpuppies off the shore of Belle Isle, conducting catch-and-release surveys to track and better understand local populations. The information gathered in the surveys provides a baseline for how mudpuppy populations are faring and helps to monitor the health of the Detroit River ecosystem.

The Detroit Zoo is home to the National Amphibian Conservation Center, distinguished as the first major conservation facility dedicated entirely to conserving and exhibiting amphibians when it opened in 2001. The award-winning, state-of-the-art facility is renowned for amphibian conservation, care, exhibition and research and houses a spectacular diversity of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians.