Volunteers Tell Concerns to Zoo Association Board
About 200 Los Angeles Zoo volunteers met for three hours Wednesday with the head of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. to express concern about the association’s role in recent inquiries involving departing zoo director Warren D. Thomas.
“It was a clear-the-air meeting,” said Thomas R. Tellefsen, chairman of GLAZA’s executive board. GLAZA is the nonprofit group that helps to operate the zoo, along with employees of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.
The group wanted to know, among other things, whether GLAZA was behind recent news stories that raised questions about possible financial improprieties at the zoo as well as chronic violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, Tellefsen said, adding that GLAZA had played no part in the matters.
“There were intense feelings, anger, as a result of misunderstanding,” Tellefsen said. But by the end of the meeting, he said, the mood was “very calm, very positive.”
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