The international Association of Zoos and Aquariums is holding its annual conference at the Tampa Convention Center this week.
The nonprofit accreditor of animal facilities says this is its largest gathering on record with nearly 3,000 attendees from around the globe.
"Our standards are the gold standard for a modern aquarium or zoo globally. And so, if you're accredited by the AZA ... you are one of the best in the world," said Dan Ashe, the association's president and CEO.
“This is the NFL of the zoological world.”
He said Tampa is unique, being only one of three U.S. cities with three AZA accredited facilities: The Florida Aquarium, ZooTampa at Lowry Park, and Busch Gardens.
The designation considers things like animal care, guest service and conservation.
"Collectively, our members spend $340 million a year in direct support for conservation. So that means every three years, our members are putting more than a billion dollars into conservation in nature across the globe,” Ashe said.
This week's conference includes more than 150 education sessions, presentations and roundtables.
The Visit Tampa Bay EIC Report says the 2025 AZA conference is bringing more than $4.5 million into the local economy this week.
Manatees, panthers and bears – oh, my!
ZooTampa gets to host the international group for a day.
"It's like a huge family reunion. You have the greatest minds that really care about, not only local species, but globally, they care about each other in the world, and education, getting families out in nature,” said Meredith Persky, ZooTampa vet and overseer of conservation education and animal health.
“Really excited to share some of the stories of our individual animals that call ZooTampa home: some rescue rehab bears, Florida panther … as well as our manatee programs.”
The zoo currently has two endangered Florida panthers it helped rehabilitate. It has also recently opened two manatee pools, as it provides critical care to the endangered sea cows.
“As of this year, our team alone has rescued 25 manatees, and so far this year we've released 20 back to the Florida waters,” Persky said.
ZooTampa also helps to educate the public on manatee safety and awareness: wear polarized sunglasses while boating, don't litter, be mindful of overfishing and other actions that can affect the main source of manatee food: seagrasses.
Climate change is cold-stunning turtles
Conference attendees also got to witness a coral spawning event at The Florida Aquarium.
The aquarium has two flagship programs: coral and sea turtle conservation, mainly at the Apollo Beach campus about 20 miles south of the downtown location.
Debborah Luke, the senior vice president of conservation for the aquarium, said there’s a lot more need for sea turtle rehabilitation.
“We've increased our patient load by about 300% in the last several years. We've gone from about 17 turtles a year to close to 70 sea turtles a year,” she said.
More sea turtles are coming from the north cold-stunned, which is a form of hypothermia for cold-blooded marine animals.
“While it's been common to have cold-stunned turtles in New England around November, we're starting to see them earlier. The water temperatures are changing in different ways than we may have anticipated,” Luke said.
When you think of climate change, you might think of “warming,” but that’s not always the case, said Luke.
“While some areas may seem to be increasing in heat and temperatures at different times of the year, some of them are getting colder in different areas in different times of the year,” she said.
“The turtles are not used to migrating at a certain time to go south, and the waters get cold before then, then they're stuck in that area where the waters are colder.”
The aquarium’s sea turtle hospital also helps animals hit by boats and entangled in fishing line.
Giant manta ray capture controversy
This conference comes just a couple months after a July video went viral, showing an endangered giant manta ray being pulled from Gulf waters off Panama City for SeaWorld Abu Dhabi.
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers responded by asking the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to stop issuing licenses that permit the capture of protected marine species.
The FWC says it halted the licensing program in August, and will revisit the rules next year.
Dan Ashe, AZA president, said having animals in human care is an opportunity to learn about and protect them.
"What's endangering manta rays throughout the world is not a collection of a single animal to be displayed in a world class aquarium. It's illegal harvest for their parts and wildlife trafficking in their parts. It's incidental capture in fishing nets. It's boat strikes," he said.
"They're incredibly difficult to study in nature, but where you have them in a controlled environment ... you can test things like the sensors that now allow us to track them in in the wild and learn about their migratory patterns and their habitat."
