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Research Articles

Assessing the impact of complimentary wildflower seed packets as an outreach tool for promoting pollinator conservation at a zoo

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Pages 92-106 | Published online: 06 Feb 2020
 

Abstract

Wildflower seeds have been distributed by zoos and other organizations to facilitate native plant gardening and promote pollinator conservation, but the effectiveness of these campaigns has not been formally evaluated. We use Toronto Zoo members as a sample population to assess the efficacy of distributing wildflower seeds versus informative material alone to encourage pollinator gardening habits. Through a post-treatment questionnaire, we found that the majority of recipients planted their seeds and were more likely to read accompanying interpretive material, but did not indicate greater future intentions to create pollinator habitat than those who had just read informative material.

Acknowledgements

We thank Ariana Burgener and Cristy Thiessen of St. Williams Nursery & Ecology Center who helped develop the seed mix. Toronto Zoo Volunteers assisted in filling the seed packets. Sheila Stanley of Rodenkirchen Communication helped with the logistics to distribute the seed packets. Beren Robinson and Andrea Nesbitt provided feedback on the statistical analysis. Chantal Barriault and three anonymous reviewers provided feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. Lastly, we thank the many Toronto Zoo Members who took the time to complete our questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest are reported.

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