A blast from the past: the birth of FAITAG

Here’s a blast from the past! The birth of FAITAG!

This is something that public aquaria and zoos are deeply involved with, which most folks are unaware of.

This picture was taken at Chester Zoo back in February 1999. At the time, this group of cheerful folks met to discuss the creation of FAITAG. FAITAG is the acronym for “Fish and Invertebrates Taxon Advisory Groups”, an organization that was widely used in the United States by AZA.

The group met and discussed how to implement these conservation strategies in Europe. The meeting was hugely successful and you can see the fruits of its labor under “Taxon Advisory Groups” at www.euac.org.

More than two decades later, zoos and aquaria are more committed than ever to saving species from extinction. Because the sad reality is that human activities are wiping out species from the wild at an unprecedented rate. This is sadly known as the “Sixth Massive Extinction” although, this time, Nature is not behind it, but Humanity instead.

Without zoos and aquaria struggling on a daily basis to rescue some species from total oblivion, generations to come would have far less fish, invertebrates, plants, and microorganisms to look at.

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