Run for the Wild 2025

This year, WCS Run for the Wild is inspired by gharials. These charismatic crocodilians can grow up to 20 feet in length and are excellent swimmers and hunters. They have complex social structures, including elaborate courtship rituals, and males can engage in various vocalizations to communicate with other gharials. They face dire threats from habitat loss and destruction, pollution, and human persecution; the Indian gharial is critically endangered, with fewer than 1,000 remaining in the wild.

WCS has been supporting gharial conservation in the wild through the Gharial Ecology Project for nearly a decade, helping to identify key areas for breeding, nesting, and feeding. You can visit Indian gharials in JungleWorld during your next visit to the Bronx Zoo; our gharials are part of the Species Survival Plan (SSP), developed to conserve critically endangered species.

Today, animals are going extinct 10,000 times faster than ever before. Gharials face threats from human activity. But WCS research has shown that by working with local communities, governments, and responsible business, and with the support of people like you who care about the future of wildlife, we can retain and protect critical resources for gharials and other species vital to their ecosystems in Central Asia and around the world.

WCS is working to give wildlife a fighting chance.

WCS Run for the Wild supports WCS's efforts to establish and help manage parks and reserves, safeguarding animals from poaching with active monitoring and patrolling, and inspiring communities to protect their local wildlife. That's where you and I come in. I care about saving gharials and other species, which is why I'm running on April 26th. With your support, I hope to raise my target. Even $10 would make a big difference for wildlife around the globe.

If you have an animal near and dear to your heart, join me for the run on April 26th. You can register here: wcsrunforthewild.org.

Thank you for your support. I can't wait to tell you about my Run for the Wild!