Word at the Zoo Is It’s Time for a Fresh Start

The big cats were lazily grooming themselves, the hippos were wallowing in their pool and the talk at the Los Angeles Zoo Thursday was of better times, stagnant water and cages built in another era.

The catalyst for the talk was a report, released Wednesday, that characterized the zoo as a place that is overcrowded and unsanitary and in danger of losing its accreditation. It described unnatural habitats for some animals and other enclosures infested by termites and mice.

Mayor Richard Riordan and others took up the call, pledging to make things better. And at the zoo itself, most said it was time to get things fixed.

“I’ve always said the zoo needs major work,” said Hazel Rosenberg as she pushed her baby along in a stroller. “The elephants have no room, the signs are inadequate, other animal areas need revamping because they are dirty.”

Nearby, Karen Rofrano, a British nanny, said much the same thing: “I think a lot of the habitat the animals are in could be improved. It’s not so much that they are too small as it is the cleanliness.”

Many of the problems at the zoo are longstanding. A report issued in 1992 went over much the same ground, to little avail. Docent Esther Alperin discussed some of them: how the plumbing was bad and the chimpanzee exhibit was terrible, how coyotes and rats invade the zoo at night, along with skunks, raccoons and badgers. But she also said there was nothing wrong that a little money couldn’t fix.

“We really have all kinds of plans that don’t come to fruition because we don’t get the money,” she said. “A lot of people feel this (report) is a good thing because it will raise the fact that this zoo needs help.”

Bob Higham, who works on a full-time construction crew at the zoo, said much of the problem is that when the zoo was being built in the early 1960s there were different standards for animal care. He said, for instance, that the holding areas for animals--where they are kept when not on display--are little more than concrete boxes. Higham said they are adequate for keeping the animals overnight, but not for several days while work is being done on their public habitat.

“It’s just old-fashioned,” Higham said. “This place has been here a long time, and it’s been neglected.”

Higham’s boss, Bud Worthen, pointed to an asphalt walkway that is cracked and uneven, the result, he said, of too much work being deferred. He also said the zoo, situated on a hillside in Griffith Park, was poorly designed from the start, with the architect borrowing ideas from other cities but not integrating them well.

“They put a cookie cutter zoo together,” he said.

Over by the siamangs, apes that were howling like crazy, Robert and Teresa Jung were strolling by with their baby son, Evan. Robert came up with the inevitable: comparing the Los Angeles Zoo with the renowned San Diego Zoo. He said his family had been to both recently and that “there definitely is a difference.” He talked of how some of the exhibits at the Los Angeles Zoo were closed while others had standing water in them. The penguin display, he said, was in poor shape as well.

But he also said there was no reason why Los Angeles, as big as it is, should not have a zoo that would rival San Diego’s, or even go it one better.

“There’s no reason L.A. can’t have that kind of zoo,” he said.

But Karen Denman had a different perspective. On vacation from rainy Seattle, she was strolling through the zoo for the first time with her husband and two young children. They had not heard about the controversy and, in the brightness of the day, the place looked fine to them.

“It’s nice to go to the zoo in the sunshine,” she said. “It’s better than dressing up the children in rain hats and coats.”