Joburg Zoo Mother’s Day Concert teaches people about critically endangered species
The Joburg City Parks and Zoo senior environment specialist encouraged the community to give back to Mother Earth on Mother’s Day.
The Mother’s Day concert at Joburg Zoo was a fun and informative treat for all in attendance. The concert on May 14, was filled with fun activities for children, and musical performances from artists including Jamie-Lee Sexton, Sir Trill, Jo Black and Ami Faku.
Executive manager of business support at Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo Louise Gordon said the zoo has several conservation and education programmes with over 6 000 children visiting the zoo every month.
Senior environmental specialist at City Parks Nathi Mvula encouraged everyone to help conserve endangered species. “Years back, we had millions of rhinos roaming the plains of Africa but today I can bet you only a few thousand are remaining. It means their numbers have dwindled to such an extent that we classify them as critically endangered – meaning they are in the red zone.”
He said it is our duty as the custodians of the environment to make it a point that we change the red to yellow, and to green so that these animals are no longer classified as endangered. Mvula said the zoo is trying its level best to replenish and increase the number of endangered species through conservation projects.
He mentioned some of the animals that are critically endangered as follows: the African elephant, pickersgill’s reed frog, blue crane, ground hornbill, chimpanzees, wild dogs and Arabian oryx. “We are appealing to you to join social movements, conservation movements, and talk about these things, participate in conservation projects so that we reverse the rate. At some point we would like to talk about the number of rhinos and elephants being in their thousands like it was before.”
Related articles:
