November is a time for joining with friends and family to give thanks, and the official time for Native American Heritage Month, when we recognize the historical and modern-day contributions of Native American individuals, as well as celebrate cultures and traditions.

As Roosevelt Park Zoo looks to build a new future, we feel that it is necessary to celebrate and conserve our past.

“If you know where you come from…. You know where you are going” said Dr. Logan Wood, zoo director and veterinarian.

In the spirit of collaboration, we reach out to our Native American community members in helping us to explore ways that celebrate and conserve our culture, beliefs and traditions as they relate to the animals of the Dakotas.

In the near future, we hope to be able to collaborate with these communities by asking permission and forming relationships with the goal of incorporating aspects of traditional languages and oral traditions in our new zoo, resulting in a cultural continuance for generations to come. Our aim is to become a place where people from all around the world can come with their families and learn how we can all coexist with the earth, where we are healthy and happy.

In the spirit of collaboration, we reach out to our fellow zoos and regional community in order to demonstrate our commitment to the First Peoples of the northern plains and the preservation of their culture and oral histories. For more than 10,000 years, Native Americans have acted as the first conservationists. They understood that if we were good stewards of these lands, that not only would the land flourish, but the animals and the people as well.

Through its multiple conservation programs, the Roosevelt Park Zoo embodies this mindset and strives to remain good stewards of the land, animals and people today. Conservation is one of the four pillars of the Roosevelt Park Zoo as well as a priority for AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). The Roosevelt Park Zoo is an AZA accredited zoo and strives to continue to be a leader in conservation to protect wildlife and wild habitat for future generations.

In honor of Native American Heritage Day (today, Nov.29), as an organization, we the Roosevelt Park Zoo, would like to respectfully acknowledge that our zoo is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Assiniboine peoples, who have been the stewards and keepers of this land for generations.

To show our commitment, the Roosevelt Park Zoo staff has created the following land acknowledgment statement:

“The Roosevelt Park Zoo gratefully acknowledges the Native Peoples on whose ancestral lands we sit. We praise the Anishinaabe and Assiniboine peoples, as well as the other sovereign nations of the northern plains whose lands encompass North Dakota today: The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation, the Spirit Lake Nation, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. The Roosevelt Park Zoo acknowledges our responsibility to join with these Tribes to inspire and advance the restoration of relationships between humans and the living world around us.”