Visiting Experts to Advise L.A. Zoo on Renovation

Three U.S. zoo directors will come to Los Angeles next month in an effort to jump-start long-delayed plans for renovating the Los Angeles Zoo.

The directors of the Atlanta, Cincinnati and Seattle zoos have agreed to tour the zoo in December and to recommend how the city should spend $23 million from a special zoo improvement fund that has languished in the city treasury for more than two years, according to an announcement Friday by Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro.

The action comes more than a year after the city rejected the original plan by zoo administrators that would have put the bulk of the money into a new veterinary hospital, an educational center and a refurbished front gate.

Zookeepers, animal rights activists and others protested that the original spending plan was tilted too heavily toward the comfort of zoo visitors instead of toward improving the animals’ quality of life. They called for more to be spent on upgrading the outdated quarters of chimpanzees, orangutans and other animals.

The city has struggled, though, to find advisers to help it draw up a new improvement plan.

Riordan and Ferraro had first called for hiring a retired zoo expert, who they suggested would come to Los Angeles for free to help draft the zoo improvement plan and mediate in the thorny relationship between zoo employees and zoo director Mark Goldstein.

But after several months, the city conceded that it could not find anyone who wanted to take the six-month job without pay.

Riordan next persuaded the City Council to budget $75,000 to pay a consultant to work with Goldstein and Les Schobert, the zoo’s chief curator, on a renovation plan. But even the salaried position did not attract qualified candidates.

Finally, two animal welfare organizations collaborated on the plan to bring the three zoo directors to Los Angeles. The Ark Trust and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals lined up the zoo directors, and the city agreed to pay each $5,000 plus expenses for their work, said Robert Flamm, head of the Western Region of the Assn. for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The three directors are expected to take less than a week to examine the zoo and submit recommendations.

“This will make it better for the animals,” Flamm said. “Our organization’s goal is to eliminate the pain, fear and suffering of animals.”

Gretchen Wyler, president of the Ark Trust said, “It is very important to the taxpayers of this city that this money be spent to benefit the animals. We believe this plan will assure that happens.”