Animal Peace Corps

The Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) offers groups of volunteers opportunities to help animals and protect the wild places they call home. The Animal Peace Corps helps animals live and thrive while providing individuals within our community and abroad meaningful ways to get involved.

Here are some of the current efforts that DZS staff and volunteers are participating in.

  • Adopt-a-Beach

    The Adopt-a-Beach initiative runs through the Belle Isle Nature Center and is part of a network of shoreline cleanups around the Great Lakes organized by the Alliance for the Great Lakes. This group combines a beach or shoreline cleanup with a collection analysis of the types of waste found. Participants gain a greater understanding of the types and amount of trash on beaches and share their data with researchers and other citizen scientists from around the Great Lakes.

    DZS Adopt-a-Beach events have resulted in the cleanup of thousands of pounds of trash along 1.25 miles of coastline on the Detroit River. Mudpuppies, beavers, waterfowl, fish and so many more animals who live nearby, including people, have all benefited from Adopt-a-Beach efforts on Lake Muskoday, Blue Heron Lagoon and the Belle Isle Beach.

  • Adopt-a-School Program

    The DZS has been a partner in the Amazon Rainforest Adopt-A-School Program since 1999 to provide school supplies and support to people living in the rural areas of Peru. This area is rich in biodiversity and culture, and the people who have been living there for generations are in an unparalleled position to preserve it. One of the keys to creating change in the world is access to education and current information. By empowering these communities to live sustainably, they become protectors of this essential region. Each year, DZS staff is excited to invite volunteers to help with the delivery of school supplies and to assist in community service projects in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Volunteers spend nine days in Peru, exploring the jungle, visiting communities and providing support that changes lives.

     

    Learn how you can help: detroitzoo.org/support/give/adopt-a-school/

  • BioBlitz

    BioBlitz is a virtual citizen science effort that uses the iNaturalist app to allow people to upload pictures of flora and fauna they observe and share them with a community of scientists and naturalists.

  • FrogWatch

    FrogWatch teaches volunteers how to identify frogs and toads by their breeding calls and so they can gather and record data that supports a national network.

  • Global Bird Rescue

    Global Bird Rescue is a collaboration with FLAP Canada and groups from around the world, in which people document and rescue birds who have collided with windows to help mitigate the impacts of window collision on bird populations.