Tabletop Exercises Strengthen Your Response Capabilities

Members of the Global Wildlife Center administration, operations, and animal care team attended a statewide tabletop exercise. L to R: Christina Cooper, Billy Breaux, Aaron Shoultz, Dustin McDonald, Dr. Kanyon McLean

Photo credit: Global Wildlife Center

A zoological facility’s staff are their best first responders when disaster strikes. Periodically practicing your contingency plans helps you hone their response capabilities. Tabletop exercises are among the most effective ways to prepare a staff to work together to protect their colleagues, animals, facility, and community because they help highlight the many different considerations that are involved with zoological response.

We’re proud that ZDR3 Network member Global Wildlife Center—a wildlife preserve in Folsom, Louisiana—recently participated in a statewide tabletop exercise to strengthen plans for protecting animals during emergencies. 

Sponsored by Louisiana State Animal Response Team (LSART); Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF); Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Programs (GOHSEP); and Volunteer Louisiana, the 2025 Louisiana State Animal Response Tabletop Exercise was designed to improve coordination among local, state, and national partners involved in animal care during disasters. 

The training brought together emergency managers and animal services from more than a dozen parishes, and state agencies such as the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Health, and the Department of Transportation and Development. National groups that attended included the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American Red Cross, American Humane, and RedRover.

“In addition to insightful considerations and proven strategies shared regarding emergency response and the care of animals during disasters, it was an incredible opportunity to connect with state and federal agencies and resources,” said Christina Cooper, Executive Director of Global Wildlife Center. “Our team also loved brainstorming ways that Global Wildlife Center may be able to help others during a time of disaster."

It’s important that zoological facilities participate in these types of exercises to ensure we have a voice and are not forgotten, since most of the participants work with domestic animals.

Plan Your Own Tabletop Exercise

A ZDR3 Tabletop Exercise in progress.

We’re always excited when members choose to expand their knowledge about managing disasters. To that end, ZDR3 created a tabletop exercise for internal staff use. It includes an instruction manual that offers detailed gameplay and challenging scenarios, incorporating tactile 3-D objects to create a highly engaging and memorable learning experience. This approach not only strengthens overall readiness, but also ensures smoother execution when facing actual disasters. This exercise can be easily modified to include additional information, challenges, and other components that can facilitate participation of outside collaborators.

A well-designed tabletop exercise can do more than test your own staff’s readiness; it can strengthen the bonds between your facility and the community resources you’d depend on in a crisis. 

Start by identifying key partners early, including emergency management, fire, law enforcement, public health, and animal control, and clarify shared objectives so everyone knows why they’re at the table. Provide context about your layout, animal collection, and safety priorities, then collaborate on scenarios that highlight shared concerns such as containment, evacuations, or public messaging. Use familiar frameworks like FEMA’s HSEEP or local emergency-planning guides to make participation comfortable, and invite observers or controllers to capture lessons during the discussion. 

Afterward, plan an after-action review to document findings, assign follow-up tasks, and strengthen agreements such as MOUs or training plans. Finally, express appreciation and keep those relationships alive by sharing outcomes and inviting partners to future drills. 

If your facility runs a tabletop exercise, consider sharing highlights or lessons learned with ZDR3 so we can feature your efforts in a future newsletter!

We are Stronger Together