Columbus Zoo makes its annual grant in honor of Betty White
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s Partners In Conservation will make this year’s annual grant to the Gorilla Doctors in honor of Betty White.
Partners In Conservation – a grassroots group created by the zoo in 1991 to protect African wildlife through humanitarian projects – will grant $40,000 in privately raised funds to the Gorilla Doctors, an organization dedicated to conserving mountain and eastern lowland gorillas through veterinary medicine.
White, who died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 99, was a supporter of the Gorilla Doctors’ work and a former board member with the organization, first through the Morris Animal Foundation where she was a board member and then through Gorilla Doctors directly.
“Our long collaboration with Morris Animal Foundation and Partners In
Conservation is a testament to the positive influence zoos can have on wildlife conservation efforts,” said Kirsten Gilardi, Gorilla Doctors’ executive director and chief veterinary officer. “We are thrilled to receive this grant in honor of Betty White, a true champion for all.”
The grant money will support salaries for three field veterinarians. Gorilla Doctors’ veterinarians monitor gorilla health throughout the year and treat life-threatening illnesses and injuries sustained in their natural habitat, including removing snares.
Mountain gorillas are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, with a population of 1,063 individuals.
“Betty White was a champion for Zoos and she will be greatly missed,” said Tom Schmid, president and CEO of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. “The Columbus Zoo team is eager to honor her legacy and felt a grant to Gorillas Doctors in her name would be a fitting tribute to her love of animals big and small.”
As a longtime animal-rights activist, White’s death sparked swells of support for animal charities, from local animal shelters to international conservation efforts.
White visited the Columbus Zoo for the first time in 1979. She returned in the mid-1990s to attend PIC’S annual Rwandan Fête fundraiser; and again when she joined Jack Hanna at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of the Zoo’s Heart of Africa region in 2014. shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120