Representing our vulnerable wildlife on land and in the water.

MORE HEAT, LESS WILDLIFE

Our Florida panter family is located at ZooTampa at Lowry Park inside of their conservation building (1101 W Sligh Ave, Tampa, FL 33604).

Please wear a mask and practice social distancing while you are there.

Follow @CLEOInstitute to see our whole Florida Climate Crisis campaign!

If you take a photo or a video with our panther family, please tag @cleoinstitute.org and use #FLClimateCrisis.

With a population of over 400,000 people, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in assets under assault from winds, storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea-level rise. From our health to our economy, everything is at risk. The American Lung Associations’ State of the Air Report gave Hillsborough County a failing grade when it comes to ground-level ozone gas pollution. A report from consulting firm McKinsey, shows that Pinellas, Citrus, and Manatee counties as three of the nine Florida counties facing the greatest property devaluation by 2050.

As you can imagine, not everyone will feel the impacts of the climate crisis in the same way in Tampa. A report by the United Ways of Florida’s central west coast (Citrus, DeSoto, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, and Sarasota counties) announced 43% of household in the region struggle to pay for basic needs such as housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and technology. This also means people do not have the financial resources to protect their homes from hurricanes or flooding. They are not able to evacuate and are more vulnerable to extreme heat. However, more needs to be done to protect Tampa, Florida, and our planet, because we’re all connected. Tampa is not alone in the climate crisis, from the wildfires in California to the ice melts in Greenland and severe flooding in the midwest, we are all facing more climate crisis-related impacts because our global warming pollution is more than our planet can handle.