How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

 "If you visit American city, you will find it very pretty
Just two things which you must beware - don't drink the water and don't breathe the air."

- Tom Lehrer, Pollution

Zoos and aquariums have many threats that they have to plan for - animal escapes, fires, medical emergencies.  Some of them are factors that are within their control - animal escapes are almost, but not always, related to human error, such as a gate left unlocked or a faulty piece of mesh not being noticed.  Sometimes, the disaster is a factor completely outside of the facility's control.  

Much of the northeastern United States is suffering the impacts of the wildfires in Canada.    All of the Wildlife Conservation Society facilities in New York has been closed for the past few days. Poor air quality has forced many zoos to keep many of their animals inside to protect them, some of them at facilities several states to the south.

Obviously zoos and aquariums can do nothing about the root cause of the problem - they didn't start the wildfires, and it's not like they can do anything to stop the polluted air.  No one made a decision to have their facilities and their animals impacted.  What facilities can do, however, is set themselves up for success with emergency preparedness.   

Some of the aspects of preparedness relate to multiple potential disasters.  Being ready for one disaster can help a zoo better ready itself for a different one.  For example, last year much of the country had to deal with a severe outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.  A major preventative measure zoos had to take was to pull their birds indoors where they would be safe from exposure to wild birds which could serve as a potential vector of the disease.  Few zoos had capacity to move birds, sometimes hundreds of them, including larger species, indoors for a period of time of undetermined length without unduly impacting their welfare and health.   Staff had to get very creative, and many zoos - including my own - rigged up new holding areas to house birds.  Some of those holding areas are now being mustered back into surface these past few days.

Hopefully, this period of foul air won't last too, and normal operations will be able to resume soon.   The thing is, there will, inevitably be another disaster in the future - maybe fire, flood, disease, who knows.  And when that one comes, the question will be, how will a zoo respond to an unexpected disaster?  The answer is, to try and expect it.