Annual Report 2005 201 202 Wildlife Conservation Society on All ,"
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Annual2007Ê,i«ÀÌ ANNUAL REPORT 2005 201 202 WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY ON ALL ," /- T W C S . W , , , ’ , B Z. T . WCS E. / Ê"Ê " / /- LIVING INSTITUTIONS 16 WCS’s engaging wildlife collections in five parks enable millions of guests each year to appreciate the wonderful layers of life in the natural world. LIVING CLASSROOMS 30 WCS has a proud history of instructing generations of schoolchildren, teachers, and families through on-site and distance-learning programs. LIVING LANDSCAPES 40 WCS staff are involved on the ground in the most remote and difficult places around the globe, working with strategic partners and local people. Chairman Emeritus’s Letter 4 Chair’s Letter 6 President’s Letter 8 Trustees and Advisors 10 Wildlife Conservation Projects 48 Public Affairs 58 Financial Report 64 WCS Events 68 Contributors 76 Committees 88 WCS Staff 90 WCS Publications 98 Facts, Awards, Credits 100 Cover: This year marked “The Great Return” of our sea lions to their refurbished pool and the restoration of Astor Court (right), which sits at the heart of the Wildlife Conservation Societyʼs world famous Bronx Zoo. 2 WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2007 3 , ½-Ê // , DAVID T. SCHIFF, CHAIRMAN EMERITUS Having been invited to write this letter from my new vantage history. Wildlife is still imperiled worldwide, as are many as Chairman Emeritus, I find that what first comes to mind ecosystems of the greatest importance. is my firm belief in Joseph Schumpeter’s thesis of “creative >ese facts of life temper our pride in the fact that WCS destruction.” To paraphrase the Austrian economist, every has grown exponentially, and we now spend $60 million per person, family, organization, or nation must renew itself year around the world in the service of conservation. Our New periodically. >e benefits of renewal are enormous, and not York City facilities educate and entertain four million people doing so can quickly lead to disaster, or at the very least, a year, our exhibits address the global vulnerability of wildlife, impotence. and our veterinarians circle the globe to confront zoonotic During the past 11 years of my tenure, WCS can proudly diseases, especially those of an airborne, viral nature. We have count many real and meaningful accomplishments. At the recommitted to historic preservation at our Bronx Zoo and same time, much remains to be done. New York Aquarium and to the enhancement of City facilities In 1996, our Global Conservation Program budget was $8 in our Parks Renaissance campaign. >ough we have much million, the Bronx Zoo’s Astor Court needed revitalization, more to do, we have much to show for our efforts. our gorillas, tigers, and wild dogs had yet to inhabit their During the 42 years in which I have been privileged to serve new homes, the euro was six years away, gasoline cost about as a WCS Trustee, the competence and accomplishments of the $1.26 per gallon, and global climate change was a matter of organization have constantly grown. We occupy a leadership international scientific cooperation, not public affairs. In the position in linking the global needs of flora, fauna, and intervening years, about 1.4 billion people have been added humans. Our mission is a vital one, and its imperatives never to our global burden; human consumption of water, energy, cease. I look with optimism toward the next chapter in the and food has skyrocketed; and carbon dioxide and methane life of this unique and extraordinary organization, now in the emissions have risen to their highest levels in recorded human capable hands of its new Chair, Ward W. Woods. 4 WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2007 5 ,½-Ê // , WARD W. WOODS, CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES I write this inaugural letter as Chair of the WCS Board of sequestration—in order to create long-term financing for Trustees while steaming up the tributaries of the Amazon to- landscape conservation. We must incorporate communities in ward Peru’s Pacaya-Samiria Communal Reserve. >is reserve conservation planning and benefits, from Cocama-Cocamilla encompasses five million acres of irreplaceable forest in which villages to the municipalities that depend on natural resource WCS plays a central conservation role working with the Peru- use, to build consensus-based conservation and demonstrate vian government and local communities. the viability of large-scale conservation within the Human >e first impression is the landscape, or should I say river- Footprint. Ultimately, we have to confront the global changes scape? >e expanses of forest, fisheries, and swamps have been taking place that affect wildlife and wild lands into the future. affected by Amerindian presence, European invasion, com- >ese challenges are not identical to those of business, but modity booms, and resource extraction. >en it was unsus- there are many parallels. Whether operating for profit or not, tainable wildlife hunting and high-grading (a form of selective we must offer the world products that make sense for our col- logging that targets commercially valuable species) of upland lective future, and we must know what we are getting in return forests—ravages that followed those of the rubber boom. for our investment. In the case of wildlife conservation, the re- Somehow, the region survived with much of its natural glory turn is not to any single individual but to the Earth itself. intact. Today, it is the threat of global climate change that wor- WCS is in the business of creating collective goods for ries conservationists. Some experts estimate that 30 percent of future generations of people and wild animals. Intelligence, this forest landscape could be lost to climate changes during common sense, innovation, and perseverance—all attributes this century. of good business—are required by conservation, too. On Repeated assaults on areas of such importance to biodiver- the Amazon, on the Congo, or in the Arctic, we must match sity remind us all of our need to develop tools—including the knowledge with effective action and working solutions in or- capture of the forest’s asset value in the market through carbon der to succeed in this most important mission. 6 WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY *,/ ,-]Ê, -]Ê Ê-1**",/ ,- >e Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) extends its deep ap- In addition, WCS is tremendously grateful for the generosity preciation for the new leadership gifts and pledges to our GATE- and commitment of its friends who have each made contribu- WAYS TO CONSERVATION campaign received this year. >e tions totaling one million dollars or more this year: outstanding support of our programs, activities, and operations from those listed here is critical to ensuring that WCS continues ■ Darlene and Brian Heidtke, for their ongoing commitment to strive for and achieve the highest standards in all its work. to our work in wildlife health, in particular our Field Veteri- WCS is enormously grateful to Robert W. Wilson for his nary Program and the operations of our Global Center for magnificent and sustained support of our global conservation Wildlife Health and WCS-Marine Conservation. programs, with matching grant funds that this year totaled nearly $15 million. >rough this remarkably generous and enlightened ■ >e Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, for its ongoing challenge grant, he has had a profound and lasting impact on the commitment to a grant program that supports state wildlife future of wildlife and WCS’s efforts to secure new support for its action plans in North America. conservation work around the globe. WCS thanks the Starr Foundation for its tremendously gener- ■ Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund, for its continuing partner- ous additional support for the construction of the C.V. Starr Sci- ship with our Karukinka and Beyond program, which ence Campus at the Bronx Zoo. >e Starr Campus will be home funds our vital conservation efforts on the island of Tierra to two vitally important new core facilities that will significantly del Fuego. enhance our global conservation and wildlife health programs: the José E. Serrano Center for Global Conservation and the Global ■ Jonathan L. Cohen, for a generous gift to name the Nile Center for Wildlife Health. crocodile pool in Madagascar! and a fund to care for these ex- WCS extends a heartfelt thank you to Allison and Leonard traordinary animals. Stern, who provided an extraordinarily generous gift to support the construction of a magnificent new snow leopard exhibit at the ■ >e David and Lucile Packard Foundation, for support of Central Park Zoo. >e Allison Maher Stern Snow Leopard ex- WCS’s work in Fiji and the western Pacific region, among hibit is scheduled to open in Spring 2009. other programs. >e Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation continued its long- standing commitment to WCS-Latin America and Caribbean by ■ >e Jay Pritzker Foundation, for its generous multi-year providing a major new grant for our work in the Amazon Basin. grant to fund new conservation activities in exceptionally We thank Donna and Fred Nives for their generous planned threatened areas of Tanzania. gift to name the Donna and Fred Nives African Wild Dogs ex- hibit at the Bronx Zoo. ■ >e Schiff Family, for its magnificent support of a new en- dowment for curatorial science activities. ■ Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods, for their extraordinarily en- lightened support of WCS’s programs and activities, includ- ing the WCS Institute’s State of the Wild series. >is year, we welcome the Blue Moon Fund, Conservation International-Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Jay Pritzker Foundation, the Shell Exploration & Production Company, and the estates of Jack R. Howard and Mary Daly Wolfson to our circle of Best Friends—those whose cumulative philanthropy to WCS meets or exceeds one million dollars. ANNUAL REPORT 2007 7 *, - /½-Ê // , STEVEN E. SANDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER I write this year from the western Amazon, as part of a small the asset worth of forests and their creatures, through market group visiting WCS programs in the riverine forests of north- mechanisms, to create long-term financing for wildlife conser- eastern Peru.