The Region - News from April 26, 1985

Joan B. Kroc, owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team and widow of McDonald’s restaurant founder Ray Kroc, made a personal donation of $3.3 million to the San Diego Zoo--the largest gift to the zoo and among the largest individual donations in the city’s history. The money is to be used to reconstruct the zoo’s Cascade Canyon, which will later be renamed for the Kroc family. The two-acre canyon houses animals native to Asian rain forests. Kroc made the donation after reading newspaper accounts of deteriorating conditions at the zoo, said Charles L. Bieler, executive director emeritus of the Zoological Society of San Diego.