Dogfight at the Zoo : Keepers and Others Protest Spending Priorities Outlined in $25-Million Remodeling Plan

Three chimpanzees wear expressions of extreme boredom on this hazy winter morning at the Los Angeles Zoo. Slouching atop an austere, 1960s faux rock outcropping, the primates lethargically link arms and stare blankly over the heads of their human visitors.

In their cramped quarters, devoid of dirt, grass or foliage, these highly intelligent creatures do not look very happy.

Despite a wide consensus that the chimps’ quarters should be remodeled, a coalition of zookeepers, curators and animals rights activists say zoo and city administrators are moving too slowly. That is why the zoo employees are loudly objecting to a $25-million zoo renovation plan that would do nothing to improve the chimp exhibit and many other outdated habitats.

“The focus has to be on the residents of the zoo, the animals,” said one zoo supervisor who did not want his name used. “We have to sit down and look at the direction we are going.”

Los Angeles Zoo administrators and city officials drew up the controversial spending plan, which would provide a new veterinary hospital, an educational center for schoolchildren, an expanded front entrance and a dramatic, multilevel habitat for polar bears and penguins.

Critics complain that the plan leans too heavily toward a few grand projects that would do little to enhance the lot of the animals. The dissident employees have called for the money, which comes from a 1992 property tax levy approved by voters, to be spent almost entirely on the zoo’s outdated animal exhibits.

The workers’ postcard and telephone campaign has succeeded in persuading Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro to ask for a review of spending priorities at the city-owned zoo in Griffith Park.

Zoo Director Mark Goldstein and others who helped draw up the list of priorities now say they are willing to re-examine it.

A consultant’s report due in the next several weeks is expected to help decide how the money will be spent, as well as suggesting ways to repair the deteriorating relationship between the employees and Goldstein. These local controversies have served to heighten a debate around the world about what a modern zoo should be.

Zoological directors agree that the “Noah’s ark” approach--collecting the largest and most varied menagerie--is on the way out. But what will replace that is unclear.

The public is demanding to see animals in more humane and natural settings. Zoologists insist that the preservation and propagation of endangered species be preeminent. And government officials require that all this be done more efficiently, placing less of a drain on tax resources.

“There is a dramatic change in philosophy in zoos from just collecting (animals) to a more holistic approach,” Goldstein said. “At the same time, this zoo was built 27 years ago and now all the problems are coming to a head at once.”

Goldstein said that although keepers can focus strictly on the care of animals, he must pay attention to overall planning, fund raising and the bottom line.

The latter has not been good for the zoo in recent years.

Attendance in 1993 barely broke 1.5 million, the lowest mark in eight years and 25% below the number of visitors in 1989, when the last major new exhibit opened. Total income for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., the private, nonprofit organization that supports the zoo, has been essentially stagnant for several years.

It is no wonder that passage of Proposition A, with its $25 million for zoo remodeling, was greeted as a seminal event in the zoo’s history.

A general outline for use of the money was provided by a 1992 zoo master plan, completed after three years of study and public hearings. But it was a group of zoo administrators and city officials, headed by Goldstein, that took the outline and drew up the controversial spending priorities.

In a memorandum, the group described and justified its choices this way:

* A new veterinary hospital, to be located about a mile from the zoo, would improve treatment and quarantine areas for all animals, particularly larger ones that now must be treated in their zoo quarters.

* An educational center would better accommodate the hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who visit the zoo each year and who now rely on a handful of classrooms. An adjoining expanded front entrance would improve wheelchair access, offer a more comfortable spot for visitors to get acclimated and include an introductory animal exhibit.

* The polar bear and penguin exhibit would become the long-sought attraction for the front of the zoo. A series of pools would be connected by running water and churned by a wave machine. Special viewing areas would allow visitors to see two of the zoo’s most popular animals underwater as well as above ground.

Although the three projects combined would cost more than $37 million, zoo and city Recreation and Parks managers have said they are so confident of their popularity that they would be able to raise the balance through private donations.

But curators and keepers complain that a veterinary center a mile from the zoo would be impractical and that the need for an education center has been exaggerated--that the classrooms and an auditorium often stand empty. They note that the zoo’s front entrance has been remodeled once.

“People don’t come here to see a new front entrance or an educational center,” said a senior zoo supervisor. “They come to see the animals.”

“You could fix a majority of the zoo with that money,” said animal keeper Gretchen Schultz, who helped lead the campaign for new priorities. “It should go directly to the animals.”

More than 50 zoo employees have signed a petition calling for an overhaul of outdated exhibits, particularly the concrete enclosures that house the chimpanzees, several species of bears and many other top attractions.

Although these exhibits were considered innovative when the zoo opened in 1966, with bars removed and space expanded, there is now a consensus that they are too sterile and provide no stimulation for the animals.

The zookeepers say that in many cases, the remodeling should be done with an eye to eliminating some exhibits and moving the animals to other zoos, combining the remaining space into more expansive and natural exhibits for the animals that remain.

Goldstein said he concurs with such a policy, to a degree. A consultant is being sought to devise a plan for expanding the chimp enclosure into an adjoining compound once occupied by baboons.

“When you are working on budgets and bringing together different groups of people, it’s hard to agree what to do first,” Goldstein said. “There is going to be disappointment.”

Despite the wide-ranging need for remodeling, outside authorities say that Los Angeles’ animal collection and the zoo’s vast market are reason for hope.

“The Los Angeles Zoo should be one of the premier zoos in the country,” said Michael Hutchins, director of conservation and science for the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. “It has a very important collection. It should have exhibits the equivalent of New York and Chicago. But the facilities there are old.”

In the last three years, the zoo has made strides in improving safety and sanitation standards for its animals, according to evaluations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The zoo now receives just a handful of corrective orders, contrasted with dozens of orders in 1990 that threatened to bring stiff fines or closure of the facility.

The zoo has recently been made more comfortable for people as well with the installation of diaper-changing tables in restrooms and the reopening of a tram to help visitors traverse the hilly, 118-acre compound.

But in the cramped and unimaginative exhibits, many animals continue to pace, groom themselves obsessively or exhibit other unhealthy behavior common to many animals in captivity.

For many zoo employees, three exhibits have come to exemplify the need for change:

* The quarters for the chimp troop, one of the largest and most socially compatible in the country.

* The polar bear exhibit, where two bears share a Matterhorn-steep concrete slab that is too cramped for much recreation. The small, kidney-shaped pool would be paltry even by a suburban homeowner’s standards. And a ball and an empty beer keg, installed as recreational devices, have long since lost their novelty for the bears.

* Five penguins are kept in a small, scruffy holding area that is easily overlooked by the public, particularly when the birds are in their nests. Questions have been raised about the safety of the exhibit; 42 penguins have died there over the last decade. Despite acquisitions and births, the colony has dwindled to five birds. A debate is raging between keepers and curators, who want to close the penguin exhibit, and Goldstein, who said it is unclear if changes are needed.

Keepers say they are pleased that the remodeling plan provides for better polar bear and penguin habitats, but they worry that it does too much for those animals and not enough or nothing for antelope, bears, orangutans, chimps and other animals.

The zoo has completed some more modest remodeling in recent years.

A series of wood platforms, cargo netting and rope swings have improved an orangutan exhibit that zoo officials said is still too small. Palm trees and other foliage have given some refuge for jaguars once kept in a bare exhibit. Ongoing work on the elephant oval will provide slightly more room for the animals and electronic barn gates that will enhance keeper safety.

The most publicized change recently at the zoo was the addition last summer of a waterfall, stream and series of small ponds to the tiger hollow. The resulting Tiger Falls also includes a new window that allows visitors to see two female tigers from eye level, instead of from the top of a moat. Bright new graphics describe the cats and their native habitat--a striking improvement over the faded markers that identify most zoo animals.

The opening of Tiger Falls boosted attendance for several months last summer. And Goldstein and officials at the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. point to it as the kind of improvement that makes life better for the animals and viewing more fun for visitors.

But some zookeepers object that the improvements were designed more for people--leaving unchanged the size of the exhibit and the cats’ nighttime holding pens.

But even critics agree that the $276,000 Tiger Falls exhibit is a curatorial wonder compared to a 1989 folly known as Adventure Island. The $7-million project was the largest construction effort since the opening of the zoo--designed in part to correct a flaw in the zoo’s design that put most animal exhibits more than half a mile from the parking lot.

Although Adventure Island is easy to find, just inside the main gate, it is hard to understand once you enter. Patrons pass a seal pool and waterfalls to enter a circle of dark caves before emerging into a plaza with several other small animal exhibits.

Poor design has made animal escapes from “the island” routine. Other pens are not safe for either the animals or their keepers.

A rattlesnake terrarium inside the caves had to be closed because of the danger to keepers, who could not see the snakes when they entered through a single doorway. Several members of a featured prairie dog colony climbed out of the low-walled enclosure and others drowned because their dirt pen had inadequate drainage. The colony has been closed while curators search for a way to keep the rodents in and the water out.

Goldstein concedes that Adventure Island is “sterile,” but that he hopes wildlife videos and other technology can salvage the area as a popular attraction.

Looking through the dark caves at the cascading water, he tries to find a silver lining: “Maybe at least it’s a place where kids and parents can cool off and blow off a little steam.”

Life at the Zoo

Some particulars on the Los Angeles Zoo:

* Location: Griffith Park * Species: 500 * Animals: 1,600 * Acres: 118 * Founded: 1966 * 1993 attendance: 1.5 million * Annual operating budget: $14.5 million * Admission: General $8; children 2-12, $3; over 65, $5 * Issue: How to spend $25 million in property tax revenue approved by voters in 1992. Funds are the biggest single infusion of cash since the zoo opened. * Zoo administration proposal: Use the money to build a new veterinary center, front entrance, education center and aquatic exhibit for polar bears and penguins. * Zoo workers’ view: Improve a wide array of exhibits of chimpanzees, bears, penguins, orangutans and other animals; reduce or eliminate funds for education center and veterinary center.