About

At the Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond Wetland Conservation Programme, we work to design and deliver impactful conservation-focused research, restoration, and outreach that highlights the importance of saving Canada’s sensitive wetland species and their habitats.

Adopt-A-Pond has several major off-site initiatives that address wetland conservation issues in Ontario. The Programme also runs a number of projects on site at Toronto Zoo to protect and celebrate wetland biodiversity. See our website for more information.

Adopt-A-Pond’s Off-site Initiatives

1. Ontario Turtle Tally

The purpose of Ontario Turtle Tally is to collect, record and store location and species information on Ontario turtles, including species at risk. Turtles are most often seen in June when they are traveling to reach their nesting sites. The information that is collected in this database will be submitted to the Natural Heritage Information Centre and will be used to learn more about turtle distributions in Ontario.

2. FrogWatch Ontario

FrogWatch Ontario is a fun, easy amphibian monitoring project for people of all ages. It’s a great activity for schools, families, landowners, agricultural groups, cottagers, and community and naturalist groups across the province.

FrogWatch Ontario is part of the national initiative, FrogWatch Canada, administered through NatureWatch. Adopt-A-Pond is the Ontario provincial coordinator of the project. FrogWatch Ontario is a partnership between Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond Wetland Conservation Programme, The University of Ottawa, Wilfred Laurier University, Nature Canada & the David Suzuki Foundation.

3. Urban Turtle Initiative

Over the past 10 years, the Toronto Zoo’s Adopt-A-Pond Wetland Conservation Programme has undertaken a series of research projects, as a collective entitled the Urban Turtle Initiative, to learn more about what species of turtles live in the Rouge River Valley, when and how they travel through their habitat, and how they use the landscape to survive. Many of the turtles that live in our watershed are Species at Risk, protected by both Federal and Provincial legislation.

In recent years, this aspect of the program has expanded to include the raising and release of the Endangered Blanding’s turtle back into its historic habitats in the Rouge River Valley. Up to 50 young Blanding’s turtles are released back into the wild each year!