ZDR3 Newsletter: Sept. 2025 - Hurricane season isn’t over yet

We're Ready! Are You?

With fewer early season deployments this year, our staff has focused on upgrading, testing, replenishing our equipment and supplies, and honing our packing lists.

ZDR3 Administration Manager, Melanie Messer, deftly manages procuring, maintaining, and organizing all of the ZDR3 team response gear. This year, thanks to increased funding, she has been able to procure items that will further enhance our response capabilities, such as enhanced PPE for our core team, telecommunications equipment, support materials, basic tools, and first aid supplies.

Melanie stores everything into labeled bins she can quickly grab and load for deployment. She recently tested out a new packing system we’ll be using in our deployment truck (“Cassie”), which our NC-based team uses for deployments generally east of the Mississippi River. By practicing a deployment load in, Melanie is ensuring our team can be ready to roll efficiently when we receive a call for assistance that requires on-scene coordination and support from ZDR3.

There is an additional, fully outfitted ZDR3 response trailer positioned for use in Texas and on the Gulf Coast. For deployments that do not include a ZDR3-equipped unit or for which our team flies into a location, we employ alternative packing and procurement strategies. This includes using hard-shell, padded cases to transport sensitive equipment on commercial flights, and determining which bulky resources can potentially be procured in the region or supplemented by nearby teams.

Check out our resource library for tips on how to build and train a response team, receive assistance, pack for a deployment, and much more.

Tabletop Exercises Strengthen Your Response Capabilities

A zoological facility’s staff are their best first responders when disaster strikes. Periodically practicing your contingency plans helps you hone your response capabilities. Tabletop exercises are among the most effective ways to prepare a staff to work together to protect their colleagues, animals, facility, and community because they help highlight the many different considerations that are involved with zoological response.

Read about how staff from a ZDR3 Network facility participated in a statewide tabletop exercise to strengthen plans for protecting animals during emergencies, and about how you can use the ZDR3 Tabletop Exercise to prepare your staff and community partners for disasters.

Going to the ZAA or AAZK Conference?
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ZAA Annual Conference

The ZDR3 core team will be attending the ZAA Annual Conference in San Antonio. Our Executive Director, Julia Wilder, and Operations Manager, Cari Wittenborn, will be presenting “Disaster is a Moving Target: Updates from ZDR3.” In addition to offering updates about responses, they will introduce ZDR3’s newest staff and board members; describe the ZDR3 deployment units in North Carolina and Texas; and explain our new emphasis on planning, preparedness, and readiness.

AAZK National Conference

Then Cari will head to the AAZK National Conference in Phoenix, where she will present “Safeguarding Species and Self: A Zoo Keeper’s Guide to Disaster Preparedness and Response.” She’ll be talking about a robust range of topics: aligning with USDA contingency planning requirements; how to mentally prepare for the realities of compromised animal welfare; and practical tools like go-bags and the ZDR3 Tabletop Exercise. She will end with a discussion about physical and mental health strategies for keepers, stress management techniques, and fostering a culture of mutual support during crises.

We hope you’ll join us for these presentations, and look forward to the opportunity to chat with you then, or one-on-one during the conference!

ZDR3 Featured in AZA Magazine

ZDR3 is an inclusive network that partners with all industry business models. This whole-industry approach leads to exceptional collaboration among facilities that choose to send response teams.

The 2024 response season was incredibly active and included multiple deployments by facility teams and responders from across the country and industry to hurricanes, wildfires, and to facilitate emergency animal placement needs. In recognition that a portion of these teams come from AZA-accredited zoos, we felt other AZA facilities would enjoy reading about their colleagues’ generosity, so we celebrated their accomplishments in an article for AZA Connect magazine.

Thank You, ZDR3 Sponsors!

We are Stronger Together