To celebrate the release of Disneynature’s Born In China Blu-ray, we sat down and chatted with Dr. Anne Savage, the Conservation Director for Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Dr. Savage has extensive experience developing conservation programs for a variety of species worldwide. She leads the conservation program for Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment that align with the corporate Reverse the Decline, Increase the Time philanthropy efforts of the Disney Conservation Fund to provide a platform to increase our conservation impact while involving cast members and sharing our conservation stories throughout Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. She has led the development of Proyecto Tití, a conservation program designed to conserve Colombia’s most endangered primate the cotton-top tamarin and leads the Walt Disney World sea turtle conservation team that works to protect sea turtles and educate our guests and visitors at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort. With a focus on native wildlife, Dr. Savage leads the team to protect purple martins, a small migratory song birds that flies more than 3,000 miles from the Brazilian Amazon to WDW to raise their young, and her team is also helping to restore habitat and reintroduce the rare Atala butterfly to the east coast of Florida. Whether it is working to save the critically endangered Sumatran rhino in Indonesia or the Siberian Crane in China, Dr. Savage works with teams throughout The Walt Disney Company to protect some of the world’s most amazing animals and ensure the health of our planet for generations to come.
We spent an hour learning about the conservation efforts that Disney assists in worldwide. And the Siberian Crane listed above can be found in this Disneynature video which releases on August 29, 2017:
Disney partners with conservation organizations worldwide, and since it does no outside fundraising, all monies spent are from Disney’s own pockets, so to speak.
Dr. Anne shared that she helped to open the Animal Kingdom Park 20 years ago as a conservation biologist. Did you know Animal Kingdom is a certified Zoo that participates nationwide in breeding programs to help animal species? Animal Kingdom is not just a theme park, it is part of a worldwide effort to save some endangered species, and strengthen others. And again, Disney supports all of these efforts with their own money. And guess what? “conservation didn’t just start when we opened this park. It actually began with Walt. You know Walt has a long history of caring for wildlife. It started out with a lot of the movies that were you know part of our company years ago and continue to this day.”
Walt’s brother, Roy Disney, felt similarly, “Animals in the natural world are as important to the legacy of the Walt Disney Company as snow White and Mickey Mouse.” Anne continued, “And that’s something that we live, eat and breathe each and every day.” She is referring to the folks who work at Animal Kingdom!
Dr. Anne says it is all about inspiring the next generation to help, and that is why there are so many ways for kids to participate as they learn about wildlife and conservation when they are enjoying Animal Kingdom.
We also chatted about the snow leopards in the above movie, Born In China. Many of her colleagues had never seen a snow leopard in the wild. They had seen paw prints and droppings, but almost none had ever spied a real one. So when these folks saw the footage from the movie they knew how hard the film folks had to work to get their material, and they were completely blown away.
And I, like most people, don’t realize that the people working at Animal Kingdom are not just zookeepers. “There are Conservationists and Scientists, and Veterinarians and Educators and Animal Keepers that, not only have great specialization of– with the animals that they work with here in the park, but also lend their expertise to protecting animals in the wild.” There is far more going on to help the animal kingdom then we visitors to this park realize.
In fact, another Disney property, the Disney Vero Beach Resort, is right at the edge of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. “What makes us different is that we engage all of the guests that are staying at the resort and all the visitors that are on the 7 miles stretch of beach that we’re working on to care about Sea Turtles.” There are trips organized to watch the sea turtles, and if you get lucky, see them hatch and race towards the ocean. They have a trained dog, a rescue dog, who can locate the newly laid sea turtle eggs by the mucus still on their shells. By identifying this “turtle nursery,” Disney can protect the area until the turtles hatch and head toward the ocean. This is helping to keep this population from declining or disappearing.
Meet this wonderful and hardworking dog, Captain Ron:
Please stop what you are doing right now and start helping simply by going to the Disneynature Facebook page and clicking the “like” button. That is the first step we can all take to start helping. The second step is to read more and find out how you can more actively help.
Assisting local artisans to sell their wares is another way Disney helps. “Well I wanted to show you this purse. Okay, this was actually made in Columbia and it’s made from recycled plastic bags, hand crocheted. Isn’t this amazing?” said Anne. We need to recycle more plastic this way!
Education is also key, and learning how to use animal behaviors to work with the indigenous people is important. Elephants hate bees. They go in their trunks and also bother them in sensitive areas behind their ears. Farmers do not want them on their land, trampling crops and eating their foliage. Setting up beehives on fences around the farms keeps the elephants away: when they touch the fence the vibration gets the bees buzzing and the elephants going in the opposite direction! This re-direction helps keep our world elephant population from declining as well!
This is a natural way for man to work with his environment. This was wonderful to hear! Your support helps keep this research going and helping more communities around the world, which helps our animal population!
You can also help by supporting any Disney nature initiatives you see while in the parks, or by buying the Disneynature videos. I had no idea about the amount of time or money that Disney as a corporate entity spent on nature conservation, it is an honor to be able to share that information with you as we all work towards protecting our planet and all the species living here!
I then asked Dr. Anne to be my celebrity picture of the day! It was an honor to meet and listen to her explain how hard she works at her job. She once worked in a climate so cold that she and everyone else had to sleep in their clothes, with hot water bottles! She is one hard working lady trying to push conservation efforts all around out planet.
And she explained that Disney’s Conservation Fund has already given away over 65 Million Dollars. This is money completely separate from the money spent on the upkeep of all the animals at the Animal Kingdom!
Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, please check out all the beautiful animal videos on the Disney Parks page, titled: Disney’s Animals, Science & Environment!
BORN IN CHINA (On Digital and Blu-ray 8/29)
https://www.facebook.com/Disneynature/
https://twitter.com/Disneynature
https://www.instagram.com/Disneynature/
http://nature.disney.com/born-in-china
Disclosure: Disney invited me on this press trip and paid all of my expenses. No other compensation was received. All opinions are always 100% my own and honest.
This is such an amazing project! So excited to read everything Disney is doing to help with those species! You’re so lucky to have been at the event to witness it!
It is very heartening to know that there are projects like these that will help preserve the environment and species for future generations.