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Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens (Visit this link)
The Los Angeles Zoo is located in the heart of the nation’s second-largest city. Each year 1.4 million visitors pass through the gates to view a collection of more than 1,200 animals from around the world.
When the Los Angeles Zoo opened in 1966 it was the fourth zoo to serve the city. In 1885, the city-owned Eastlake Zoo opened in East Los Angeles Park, and in 1912 the Griffith Park Zoo opened up a few miles from the current Los Angeles Zoo site. By 1915, colorful “Colonel” William Selig opened his combination movie studio and zoo, the Selig Zoo, in Lincoln Park.
By 1956, the citizens of Los Angeles realized their city had outgrown the small Griffith Park Zoo and passed a $6.6 million bond measure to help build a new one.
A 113-acre site in Griffith Park was chosen, and in 1964 a private, nonprofit organization was created to support the new effort. Before the new zoo even opened, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA) had already graduated a class of trained, volunteer docents; produced several issues of a quarterly magazine called Zoo View; and had begun raising money and acquiring animals.
When the Los Angeles Zoo debuted in November 1966, 80,000 Angelenos attended the opening. (Several of the animals that were at the Zoo on opening day are still with us: our Asian elephant Gita, and an alligator, appropriately named Methuselah.) In the interest of health and safety, the L.A. Zoo was the first major zoo in the United States to bar visitors from feeding the animals.
In 1967, GLAZA President Margaret Taylor wrote a check for $75,000 to acquire for the Zoo three endangered Arabian oryx. The animals were quickly becoming extinct in the wild, and over the ensuing years the Los Angeles Zoo cooperated with the Phoenix Zoo—the only other American zoo to house oryx—and successfully bred the gazelle-like animals. Later, descendants of those animals were reintroduced to the wild in Israel, while other descendants of that original L.A. Zoo herd live on here.
The first Beastly Ball, a safari-themed dinner-dance and a major fundraiser for the Zoo, was held in 1970.
In 1972 the Zoo became an accredited member of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA), and in 1974 welcomed Dr. Warren D. Thomas as Zoo Director.
During his 17-year tenure, Thomas assembled one of the world’s most acclaimed animal collections, adding rare and endangered species such as the Sumatran rhino, Jentink’s duiker, zebra duiker, yellow-footed rock wallaby, giant eland, gerenuk, emperor tamarin, and bongo. In 1975, curators decided to sell several of the oryx to a wildlife preserve in Israel, and the funds raised helped the Zoo to acquire other rare and endangered species.
During the 1970s, the Zoo built the Andrew Norman Education Center, launched ZooMobile—a docent program that took animals to schools—built Wolf Woods and Monkey Island, as well as new exhibits for gorillas, orangutans, flamingos, and bongos.
By 1980 the replacement value of the Zoo’s animal collection was valued at $4 million. The Zoo became part of the new California Condor Recovery Program and in 1982 built the extensive “condorminiums,” one of the finest and largest facilities in the condor program.
The Ahmanson Koala House, opened in 1982, made the Los Angeles Zoo the only zoo in the world to exhibit these nocturnal animals in a darkened setting. The facility won a Significant Achievement Award from the AZA.
In 1984, Los Angeles hosted the Olympics and the Zoo became a temporary home for two giant pandas. The China Pavilion that was built specifically to house these endangered bears was later modified to house rare golden monkeys, and still later, snow leopards. Today, it is a powerful animal holding facility that provides a place for animals — most recently our mandrill — to live safely while their exhibits are being refurbished.
A $3 million challenge grant from the Weingart Foundation provided a major source of funding for Adventure Island. This new children’s zoo housed bats and skunks in darkened exhibits, sea lions in a pool with a waterfall, and prairie dogs in an exhibit that children could see from prairie dog level. Included with Adventure Island was a nursery with incubators and other equipment to provide special care for young animals.
After a generous donation from Alice C. Tyler in 1988, a new exhibit was built to house meerkats for the first time at the Los Angeles Zoo. Later, artists from Walt Disney Studios would sketch those meerkats and the Zoo’s warthogs and lions to help create the animated characters in “The Lion King.”
The 1990’s saw an increase in educational programs at the Zoo: Wild About Science, Dreams Come True at the L.A. Zoo, Zoo Discovery Kits, and Critters ‘n’ Kids all helped children better experience the wonders of the Zoo. A five-year grant from the ARCO Foundation funded ZooReach, a program that brings children from low-income neighborhoods to the Zoo, and helps them return with their families. Zoo Discovery Kits helped teachers teach their students about the Zoo, and provide curriculum for follow-up lessons. The program received a Significant Achievement Award from the AZA.
Meanwhile, new signs appeared at the tiger and elephant exhibits. People could compare the size of an elephant's foot to their own, or the size of a tiger’s paw to their pet cat’s.
New graphics in the play park explained Zoo life to children. A gift from the Ray Rowe Trust for Animals paid for 81 new exhibit graphics in the Reptile House.
With a major gift from Nestle USA, the World of Birds Show began in a wonderful new theater. Keepers continue to improve the show, which features many different animals—including some that fly in from a hillside behind the theater.
After research from scientists such as Jane Goodall showed that the psychological welfare of animals was an important component of their physical welfare, the Zoo created what has become one of the largest volunteer behavioral enrichment programs in the country. B.E. volunteers work with keepers to find ways to promote natural behaviors in animals: Chimpanzees dig food out of logs with twigs. Tigers track scents of rabbits around their exhibits. Sea lions play with giant, indestructible plastic “ice cubes.” In 1993, a gift from Purina paid for the refurbishment of the tiger exhibit and the addition of a waterfall. A $1.3 million elephant barn was built in 1994 with private donations and concessions revenue. The new barn better met the needs of the animals and provided new and improved ways for keepers to care for them.
While the Zoo was making great strides in areas such as education and behavioral enrichment, other areas had been allowed to slip. City budget cuts delayed maintenance and improvements, and aged exhibits deteriorated, even as research showed that animal health could be improved with better living spaces. The perimeter fence was riddled with holes, which allowed coyotes to get into the Zoo.
A trio of officials from the AZA visited the Zoo in 1995 and was appalled at some of the conditions. The United States Department of Agriculture cited the Zoo for hundreds of cleanliness and safety violations. The AZA gave the Zoo a year to clean up or risk losing its accreditation. In 1995 the City Council appointed Manuel A. Mollinedo, a career bureaucrat, to take over the Zoo and turn it around. During the next year, Mollinedo pushed for more than 400 exhibit and facility improvements, and solidified support for the Zoo at City Hall. At the AZA conference in August 1996, in a major show of support, the association granted the Zoo re-accreditation for five years.
In the summer of 1996, the Zoo completed a new gorilla holding area that provides a secure, safe enclosure for introducing one gorilla to another. The holding area was built with private donations and concessions revenue.
In August 1998, the Zoo opened the first major new exhibit since Adventure Island, the Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains. Designed by CLR Design, the new exhibit encourages the chimpanzees’ playful nature, and provides ample opportunities for people to get face-to-face with chimpanzees with only a pane of glass between them. The chimps also have a spacious holding area with an open-air penthouse and private rooms for individuals or families.
Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains, named after a thriving wild troop in Tanzania, is the first phase of the Zoo’s planned Great Ape Forest, and part of the Master Plan. In 2000, the second phase of the Zoo’s Great Ape Forest opened with the spectacular Red Ape Rain Forest, a state-of-the-art habitat for the Zoo’s orangutans. With the design phase for our new gorilla exhibit complete, construction of the Campo Gorilla Reserve began in late 2003.
The people of the City of Los Angeles once again showed their support for the Zoo, with passage of County Proposition AII and City Proposition K in November 1996.
Currently under construction is the $15.8-million Children's Discovery Center, funded by Proposition K. This new education building will include a discovery room among many other exciting educational opportunities. Also in the construction phase is the Pachyderm Forest, a habitat for elephants, rhinos, hippos, and crocodiles that will simulate a forest riverbank with filtered-water moats and sandbar habitats. Proposition AII will partially pay for this exhibit; an additional $12 million in private donations will be needed to complete construction.
Visitors in 2002 saw the beginning of the construction of the new Zoo Entry Plaza and Sea Lion Cliffs. This newer, safer, more prominent entrance highlights the history and animals of California, beginning with playful California sea lions, which can be viewed from an underwater vantage point. The voters of Los Angeles overwhelmingly passed Proposition CC in 1998, which provided $15.9 million of the $47.6 million needed to build this and other projects.
The Zoo’s future projects include a state-of-the-art reptile house and a multi-level Central and South American rain forest exhibit, Rain Forest of the Americas.
In 2002, the Zoo also received accreditation by the American Association of Museums (AAM) in acknowledgement of the quality and care of our living collections. This was the first official recognition of the Zoo's botanical collections as well as it collections of animals. The AAM accreditation status places the Zoo among the very prestigious company of museums, botanical gardens, and zoos around the country that have documented their collections and have proven their institutions' commitment to excellence and high professional standards of operation. In recognition of the Zoo's priceless bortanical collections, the City Council voted to officially change the name of the Los Angeles Zoo to the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
http://www.lazoo.org