Craig Miller, Curator of Manatee Conservation at the Jacksonville Zoo, discusses the zoo’s manatee program, including its history, specific cases, future plans, and ways the public can help protect manatees.
Speaker Bio
Craig Miller established the Jacksonville’s Zoo’s Marine Mammal Response Team in July of 2006, and has since been working closely with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), assisting with manatee rescues and carcass recoveries.
Craig has also been coordinating and overseeing the Zoo’s Manatee Critical Care Center since the first two patients arrived on August 30th, 2017. The Zoo is currently well into construction of a new manatee rehabilitation facility called Manatee River, slated to open in early 2026, which Craig helped design. The addition of this new acute care center will quadruple the number of manatees that the Zoo will be able to care for, which is both “scary and incredibly rewarding!”