Open Daily
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Open Daily
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
As our community deals with the current crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Brevard Zoo remains dedicated to the health and wellness of the animals in our care, to our exceptional employees, and to continuing our local conservation initiatives like rehabilitating sea turtles and lagoon restoration.
The Zoo’s closure has had a significant impact on our finances. In response to your kindness and concern, we created a WISH LIST below that identifies many of the things we could use right now to lessen financial challenges and enable everyone to know the precise role you are playing in supporting your treasured Zoo. We thank you for all the wishes granted already! We update these often so check back and fish a new wish. Everyone can make a difference!
Supplementing the Senses
Keepers work to provide novel sensory experiences for our animals. We can use items like mirrors, bubble machines, bells, mirrored balls, light projectors, brushes and more to change their environments.
Share the Cost by Contributing $5 | Total Shares: 30
BUY EXPERIENCES
Commissary Cooking
We prepare food for our animals with the upmost care and diligence to ensure everyone is happy and healthy. Having two digital food scales allows us to always accurately feed all of the animals in our care (and make sure their diets stay on point)!
Share the Cost by Contributing $20 | Total Shares: 17
BUY SCALE
We Can See Clearly Now, the Algae’s Gone!
No one likes to look through an algae covered tank! There’s a lot of glass to clean to ensure our animals have the best habitats and our guests have the best view! This powerful buffer would make cleaning algae a breeze for our keepers who regularly scrub the glass clean.
Share the Cost by Contributing $20 | Total Shares: 100
BUY CLEANER
Fruity Fun
Watch out, Picasso! Did you know that beach mice are artists, too? When we put fruit juice and a blank canvas in their habitat, they love to explore and investigate, leaving behind a canvas of tiny fruit-colored mouse footprints. This work of art then is used as a source of income to support this important conservation program.
Canvas: $7 | Wish for 10
BUY CANVAS
Zoo Storytellers
Every day, our marketing and communications department brings you stunning, adorable photos and videos of our amazing animals through social media while providing a window into our behind-the-scenes conservation and education programs. We are in constant need of specialty cameras and memory cards to replace broken or obsolete equipment. Help us to continue sharing our stories with you!
Share the Cost by Contributing $15 | Total Shares: 100
BUY CAMERA TECHNOLOGY
Tablets for Tracking
We use iPads to collect data on our animal residents to track important information about their actions and behaviors. The data is used to make animal care decisions based on our evidence and rooted in science. We can generate activity budgets that we compare to each animal’s species to determine if their behavior patterns are as expected. We have more than 900 animals at the Zoo, and only one iPad. Additional iPads would make collecting behavior data more efficient and effective for us.
Share the Cost by Contributing $40 | Total Shares: 25
BUY iPAD
Empowering the Team
Plug it in, plug it in! Regular habitat maintenance for our animals helps them thrive! This means keepers are often building and replacing habitat furniture. We go through lots of saw blades, sawzalls, drills, drill bits and other power tools that need to be regularly replaced.
Share the Cost of Contributing $10 | Total Shares: 30
BUY TOOLS
Cool Aid
Sprinklers, fountains and freezable items help keep Florida heatwaves manageable. Our animals like to stay cool in many different ways like lounging underneath sprinklers, bathing in water fountains or leaning against ice packs .
Share the Cost of Contributing $12 | Total Shares: 10
BUY SOMETHING COOL
UV Rays for Days
Shade, please! The sun is strong in Florida, and the Restore Our Shores team is outside in it daily. Straw hats provide excellent sun protection for their long, hot days in the sun, making their important work much more comfortable to carry out.
Share the Cost by Contributing $18 | Total Shares: 10
BUY HATS
Aquatic Animal Activities
Our aquatic animals—fish, stingrays and invertebrates—would greatly benefit from having more enrichment items in their habitat. Air bubblers and more plants would be great additions to help these underwater forage feeders thrive!
Share the Cost by Contributing $10 | Total Shares: 50
BUY AQUATIC ANIMAL ENRICHMENT
Zebra and Giraffe Pretty Pedis
In Florida, it’s always flip-flop season, so we understand why our animals deserve to have healthy, happy feet, too! We have an amazing voluntary hoof trim training program where our zebras and giraffe are trained to put their hooves on a block for trimming. Having quality tools like rasps and specialty hoof knives on hand is very important!
Share the Cost by Contributing $25 | Total Shares: 20
BUY TOOLS
Freezing Floridians
Brrr! Our dedicated Restore Our Shores team can get quite chilly in the field! This important work continues year-round, so our team is in the water even when the weather gets cold. Wetsuits provide us with the ability to continue this important work when it would otherwise be too cold to work safely.
Share the Cost by Contributing $25 | Total Shares: 36
Water Wear
For the Restore Our Shores team to be able to conduct site evaluations, build reefs and conduct monitoring events of living shorelines, it is necessary for them to have protective gear like booties, masks and snorkels. These items provide them with the ability to keep working in the lagoon each day.
Booties: Share the Cost by Contributing $15 | Total Shares: 21
Snorkels: Share the Cost by Contributing $13 | Total Shares: 20
Masks: Share the Cost by Contributing $12 | Total Shares: 25
BUY WATER WEAR
Saving Our Environment!
Did you know we produce an average of 4.4 pounds of trash a day that sadly ends up in the landfill? Happily, your Zoo has a plan to help everyone reduce their use of disposables. With the Sustainable Settings Service Program, we will loan you settings for your event or gathering that consist of plates, cups and utensils! These place settings for 12 only require a refundable $50 deposit, and you can borrow what you need! With such a genius program, we need more settings so everyone can share in this great sustainable solution!
Share the Cost by Contributing $25 | Total Shares: 30
BUY PLACE SETTINGS
Wicking for Workers
The Restore Our Shores team often works in wet and dirty conditions, so it is necessary that they are safe in the field and wear shirts with moisture wicking.
Shirts with Moisture Wicking: $20 | Wish for 20
BUY SHIRTS
Concrete for Conservation
The conservation department recently moved offices and needs an outdoor area to clean equipment and dry supplies. This outdoor drying station on a concrete slab will meet our needs for years to come!
Share the Cost by Contributing $30 | Total Shares: 50
BUY CONCRETE
Probing the Depths
For an in-depth look at the water in the lagoon, a YSI with probes will do the trick! This device allows us to assess a variety of water quality factors and will be used during site selections, monitoring events and oyster gardening site visits.
Share the Cost by Contributing $50 | Total Shares: 70
BUY PROBE
Restoring Our Shores With Mangroves
Mangroves are under pressure throughout the world. Development, pollution, oil spills and over-harvesting contribute to the decline of mangrove habitats. As the frequency and severity of storms increase due to climate change, local populations suffer, taking several years to recover. The mangroves in our Indian River Lagoon are not exempt from these threats, but our Restore Our Shores team is working to bring these trees back. Help us build healthy populations of mangroves, restoring a sustainable ecosystem for aquatic and coastal animals.
Large Red Mangrove: $45 | Wish for 25
BUY A MANGROVE
Turtle-y Territory
As the need for our sea turtle rehabilitation services has grown, so, too, has our Sea Turtle Healing Center. With our current expansion, we need to move and reset our fence. With your help, we can help keep these sea friends safe.
Share the Cost by Contributing $50 | Total Shares: 40
BUY FENCING
Feathered Friend Fun
Our birds, including our parrots, hawks and vultures, love to tear things apart (and create a huge mess). So we give them paper products to play with and shred. We need to replenish our shreddable stash so keepers can keep our feathered friends happy.
Share the Cost by Contributing $5 | Total Shares: 20+
BUY PAPER
Perdido Key Beach Mice Funnel
Our peanut-sized beach mice are quite active. In their natural habitat, they dig tunnels in the sand dunes and these tubes allow us to mimic those tunnels and give them more areas to run around and explore.
WISH GRANTED
Tidal Time
A new hose and nozzle allows us to wet the sand in the beach mice tanks, to periodically represent the tidal fluctuations our furry little friends encounter in their dunes.
WISH GRANTED
Sandy Paws
Known as the “keepers of the dunes,” our beach mice dig and live in the sandy dunes. We like to recreate their natural habitat by giving them sand to represent the natural substrate they would encounter in nature.
WISH GRANTED
Serene Sounds
A sound machine allows us to keep the Perdido Key beach mice habitat as natural as possible, allowing us to mimic the sounds of the ocean that they would hear as well as help block out human noises.
WISH GRANTED
Taking It Slow with Our Alpacas
Keepers like to mix up the type of bowl they use to feed these fast eaters. By using slow feeder bowls with different patterns and ridges, we encourage them to spend more time enjoying the finer things in life, like savoring their grain.
WISH GRANTED
Siamang Sandie Deli
What is a Sandie Deli, you may ask? It’s a large hanging device made of heavy-duty plastic with 1 ½” diameter holes all over. Keepers can hide treats inside or stuff it with browse to encourage foraging and exploration. We’d love to provide some extra challenges for Pete and Sapphire.
WISH GRANTED
Cutting the Cord
Many of the Restore Our Shores projects involve rope, but our inexpensive rope cutting tools can’t meet our demands. We are hoping to provide our team with a higher-end product that will last us more than one season.
WISH GRANTED
Hanging Out with Cheyenne
Any climbing animal would enjoy this lipped ring toy! Hanging toys are always popular with our animals; they can sway, spin and swing all day. These also provide a sanctuary area or have food hidden inside to encourage exploring and foraging.
WISH GRANTED
Foxy Feeders
Encouraging our animals to perform their natural behaviors, like how they hunt for and find their food, is so important. We do this by using a variety of interactive feeders. With these devices, our foxes are able to be fed overnight to encourage behaviors like hunting and foraging for their food when they are most active.
WISH GRANTED
Reef Refractometers
Refractometers are used during our site evaluations to assess salinity throughout the lagoon. This important measurement lets us know what areas are most suitable for constructing oyster reefs.
WISH GRANTED
Leaping Lemurs
Installing a PVC climber would provide perches for lemurs to sit on that would also allow them to sway in the wind. It would be a fun new addition to their habitat and a joy for all to see!
WISH GRANTED
Helping Our Humans
The new office space for the conservation department needs air cleaning equipment. Washable, reusable air filters align with our sustainability values, while the air purifier will help us ‘clean up’ some specific areas of air contamination.
WISH GRANTED
Putting Away the Petting Zone Toys
Staying clean and organized is a must when working with animals. Our Petting Zone is in need of more storage containers for their animal supplies to keep their barn clutter-free—both for the humans and the animals!
WISH GRANTED
A Tale of Two Otters—Lights, Camera, Action!
When our two “star” residents of Rainforest Revealed arrived last year, we could not have imagined their exceptional friendliness, charisma and comedic talents would have engaged a legion of raving fans. We need three cameras installed in strategic locations in their habitats so we can monitor them 24/7 as they acclimate to their “new normal” and navigate back and forth. These cameras enable us to provide camera footage to you, too!
WISH GRANTED
Warmer Wanderers
Our ambassador reptiles have an important job of inspiring and educating out in our community. With these microwavable heating pads, we can keep these wanderers warm while they are on the road.
WISH GRANTED
Sea Turtle “Shelfie”
Our sea turtle volunteer team generously donated funds to purchase a storage shed. The shed has arrived, and we need to build and install custom shelves to store our equipment.
WISH GRANTED
Hospital Readiness
Our L3Harris Animal Care Center is always ready to provide optimum care to our animals. Just like any hospital, we are stocked to meet the needs of our collection and need to make sure our medications have storage space that is organized and designed for easy use.
WISH GRANTED
Food, Glorious Food!
For many of our animals, foraging for food and treats is their most engaging and pleasurable pastime. Cheyenne, our Florida black bear, and Meru, our adult male babirusa, hunt for food all day as a natural way to explore, exercise and experience success when they find a favorite treat. We want to use innovative and efficient ways to satisfy this behavior by installing “timed belt feeders” and “scatter feeders” in various habitats to encourage foraging.
WISH GRANTED
Cavy Cuteness!
If you’ve visited our adorable Patagonian cavies in the Paws On Petting Zone, you know these “bunny rabbit” lookalikes are completely captivating. Timothy grass sticks made from hay are the perfect reinforcement for our cavies! It’s a special treat they don’t get all the time, which makes it even more exciting!
WISH GRANTED
Zebra Playtime
Our zebras love roaming their habitat. The perfect toy for an exciting playtime is a ball that rattles when it is picked up and shaken. The handle on this ungulate rattle ball is easy for them to grab with their teeth, thereby letting them create their own playtime “game.”
WISH GRANTED
Fowl Play
Our guinea fowl love to play! To stimulate their natural behavior of jumping, pecking and pulling to get their greens, keepers need baskets and balls (specially designed to hold their lettuce) that help us encourage this behavior.
WISH GRANTED
Keepers On the Move!
Our wonderful keepers are traversing the Zoo throughout the day as they keep our beloved animals healthy and thriving. Vehicles and golf carts can’t access many of these areas. A great need is sturdy bicycles.
WISH GRANTED
Chilly Treats
We would like the ability to feed our sea turtles patients algae (a natural Atlantic green sea turtle food source) that is grown at the Sea Turtle Healing Center. The algae we would grow needs a lot of sunshine, but without a chiller, the pool will get WAY too hot to successfully grow anything.
WISH GRANTED
Sweet Dreams!
Nothing makes a comfier, cozier bed for bears, primates and our ambassador animals than shredded pieces of willow, known as Wood Wool. The natural behavior of these animals is to gather this type of material and make it into a perfect place for snoozing and dreaming.
WISH GRANTED
“Practicing” Healthy Behaviors!
How do our animals stay so healthy, happy and thriving? Our keepers teach them to voluntarily participate in their own wellness regimen through target training. Target training equipment is constantly used, which requires regular replacement due to wear and tear.
WISH GRANTED
Camels, Impala and Oryx, Oh My!
These fabulous animals love the simple pleasures of life! They are dazzled and entertained by the many uses of a large plastic box. They can stand on it, push it around and rub their bodies against it. The possibilities are endless, and the fun is only limited by the imaginations of our keepers and these awesome animals!
WISH GRANTED
Capybara Enrichment
Our wonderful capybaras are living the dream in their beautiful new habitat in Rainforest Revealed. They love to forage, and we want that experience to be as close as possible as it would be in their natural range. This can be accomplished with devices designed to prolong foraging time.
WISH GRANTED
Zebra “Pearly Whites”
We all know that dental health is absolutely essential to overall health. So what could be more important than providing our awesome zebras with some specialized dental equipment?
WISH GRANTED
Brevard Zoo is an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) organization. Donations are tax-deductible. A copy of the official registration and financial information may be obtained from the division of consumer services (www.800HELPFLA.COM) by calling 1-800-HELP-FLA toll-free within the state. Registration does not imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by the state.