‘Adventure Island’: Zoo Gets $3-Million Gift

Los Angeles Zoo officials announced a $3-million grant Thursday from the Weingart Foundation for construction of a new “high-tech” children’s zoo in Griffith Park to be called “Adventure Island.”

Zoo officials said the donation is the biggest in the park’s history and called it “the most significant gift in the history of the zoo.”

“It’s such a staggeringly wonderful gesture on the part of the Weingart Foundation,” said Marcia W. Hobbs, president of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. “All of a sudden to have 50% of your goal met in one day is incredible. We’re grateful that they recognize that the Los Angeles community needs this kind of facility.”

The Weingart Foundation contributes money to social welfare, arts, education and children’s programs. Morris A. Densmore, the foundation’s president, said the grant would have pleased the organization’s late benefactors, Ben and Stella Weingart, because they loved young people but did not have children of their own. Ground breaking for the $6-million project is scheduled for November, with completion expected in November, 1987, to mark the zoo’s 22nd birthday. The remaining funds will be solicited from individuals and private organizations beginning this fall.

The addition will replace the current Children’s Zoo, which has become increasingly obsolete with the introduction of new technology and innovative educational games into contemporary zoo design.

“Right now, it (the Children’s Zoo) doesn’t do much of anything,” Hobbs said. “It’s terribly run-down and it doesn’t meet the highest standards of exhibit design.”

Completion of “Adventure Island” will put the Los Angeles Zoo at the forefront of zoo design and technology, she said. Initial plans call for construction of different environmental habitats where youngsters can play computer games, walk through tunnels and “try on” ears and eyes of different species to get a sense of what it’s like to be an insect, a bird or any of a number of other animals.

In “Micro Environment,” children will find themselves in front of large fabricated animals and insects designed to give a view of the environment as seen through the eyes of small animals and insects. “They really get a small creature’s view of the world,” Hobbs said. “It is one way that we think we can reinforce the educational aspect (of the project) because we all learn by touching and feeling.”