Animal Keeper's Association of Africa

Dear Sir and Madam,
Many Many Thanks (it’s not a typo) for your donation and concern with the Tohoku Earthquake affected institutions. On behalf of all of JAZA members, I would like to express our appreciation. We had asked for donation with the deadline on June 30. We’ve gotten 1041 donations of JPY 48,987,673 (approximately USD 602,777, EUR 419,966) (JPY 30,557,407 from 1013 domestic donors and JPY 18,430,266 from 28 international donors). Thank you very much for your great support! We still have the closed institution making a great effort to open again for business, some institutions which opened already but need more work to be fully recovered. I would therefore like to expand the deadline and ask for continued support for JAZAs relief effort. I hope you understand about our situation and kindly continue to help us.

I would like to report our activities included donation stuff as of the end of June as follows:

1. The support of Aquamarine Fukushima from JAZA member institutions
   1.  Aquamarine Fukushima (Fukushima prefecture) is still closed and they try to do their best to reopen its door on July 15 (all of other JAZA members are already opened again for business after the earthquake). JAZA member institutions support Aquamarine Fukushima voluntarily by sending staff there. Marinepia Matsushima Aquarium (Niigata prefecture) sent their Director, staff and volunteer stuff to help the cleaning up the damage, installation of fishes between the end of May and the end of June. Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise Aquarium sent their Director and staff to help the cleaning up of the glasses of tanks, water storage tanks and the inner side of the tanks.
      Tokyo Sea Life Park (Tokyo prefecture) sent their staff to help to bring sand out from the grainer and the big tanks.
   2. Most of the restoration of tanks at Aquamarine Fukushima was done in the middle of June and they started to collect fishes to exhibit. The JAZA asked to member institutions for cooperation to Aquamarine Fukushima to make their establishment of collection in a quick and efficient manner. About twenty institutions offered their cooperation on it. Currently Aquamarine Fukushima is in the process for the implementation of their collection planning. The evacuated animals to JAZA member institutions are slowly returning to its original institution. On June 26, Spotted Seals (Phoca largha) came back from Kamogawa Sea World. The fishes evacuated at Niigata City Aquarium Marinepia Nihonkai came back on June 30.
2. The support to Marinepia Matsushima Aquarium The Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) at Marinepia Matsushima Aquarium died in a massive earthquake. Sanriku Coast (the one near the Marinepia Matsusima Aquarium) got the serious fishery damage, and it is difficult to collect the new individual at the sea along neighborhood coast. In circumstances such as these, Ibaraki Prefectural Oarai Aquarium presented the Ocean fish to them. Besides that, Jelly fishes, fishes, Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) were presented by Oga Aquarium GAO (Akita prefecture), Kamo Aquarium (Yamagata prefecture), Nagoya Port Aquarium (Aichi prefecture), Oita Marine Palace Aquarium Umitamago (Oita prefecture) and Kagoshima Aquarium (Kagoshima prefecture).
3. The deliberation of the donation distribution To distribute the donation to affected institutions impartially and expeditiously, we established the donation distribution committee included intellectuals and accountant professions.
   We held the meetings on June 22 and 29 and discussed about allocation basis, candidate, procedure, method, period and allotment. We are keeping to review and will make decision in the middle of July.

Yours Sincerely,
Shigeyuki Yamamoto,
Chair Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums