A new partnership between UNF and the Jacksonville Zoo is working to make sure animals aren’t just surviving but thriving.
The partnership allows UNF students to not only use the zoo as a classroom, but to do research on how to ensure the animals aren’t just safe, but happy.
Students in the program are able to study the animals’ behavior for extended periods of time, much longer than the zoo keepers are able to examine them. The students are then able to report things like when and why animals may be in distress, how they interact, and what conditions in the habitat may need to change to better accommodate them.
"The zookeepers are generally really busy people, they're constantly making sure their animals are healthy, that they're being well fed, but they don't really get to look at them for hours on end," said UNF student Fatima Ramis, who is doing research on the zoo's giraffes. "So in terms of that, I give them valuable data. For the most part, a grad student gets to do some research and then go straight back to writing a thesis and report it, but I get to really have the full on experience."
Tony Vecchio, the executive director of the Jacksonville Zoo, says the work the UNF students have done has already made a great contribution.
