Spiffed-Up, Beefed-Up Santa Ana Zoo Counts on Reaccreditation

The Santa Ana Zoo, which lost its accreditation more than a year ago because of structural and other problems, will host inspectors next week who will decide whether $1.5 million in improvements bring the Prentice Park facility up to standards.

The outcome could have serious implications for the 50-year-old municipal facility.

“It hasn’t affected us too much up to this point,” said Rip Ribble, executive director of parks, recreation and community services for Santa Ana, which owns and operates the 20-acre zoo. But if the facility is not reaccredited, he said, “we expect that we would really start feeling it.”

Accreditation, which must be renewed every five years, is not required to operate a zoo, Ribble said, but it can have a major impact on fund-raising, hiring and the ability to borrow animals from other accredited zoos.

“The value of being accredited is extremely high,” Ribble said. “Without it, we would lose some of our animals.”

He said city and zoo officials are taking the situation seriously. “This is really a nice zoo,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to make it the best zoo around.”

Accredited since 1985, the Santa Ana Zoo lost that status in September 2000, Ribble said, after three inspectors from the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. in Silver Spring, Md., reported that maintenance and improvements had been delayed, that the staff was too small and that there was no written agreement with Friends of the Santa Ana Zoo, the facility’s nonprofit support group, outlining respective responsibilities.

All of those problems have since been resolved, Ribble said. The city viewed the zoo’s loss of accreditation as “kind of a wake-up call,” he said. “We used it as an opportunity to get certain things done.”

Zoo director Ron Glazier said improvements include a redesigned entrance; a remodeled commissary and animal kitchen; a new staff locker area, quarantine facility and veterinary clinic; new chain-link fences; and repaved walkways and parking. Money for the renovations came from the city, he said.

In addition, Glazier said, the zoo added six staff members: four zookeepers, an associate curator and a general maintenance worker. The staff also wrote a new agreement with Friends of the Santa Ana Zoo.

Leslie Perovich, Friends director, said, “The city’s been great. I’m really optimistic.”

So is Glazier, who said Thursday he fully expects the zoo’s accreditation to be renewed in March, when the national association announces its decision at its biannual meeting in Wichita, Kan.

Until then, he said, the facility will keep relying on its good name to get by, as it has done for more than a year.

“Because we’ve had a long-standing reputation with other zoos, they realized that what they’re dealing with is not an institution that doesn’t care,” Glazier said.

The American Zoo and Aquarium Assn.’s three-person inspection teams comprise a zoo director, a veterinarian and a curator.

The Santa Ana Zoo’s review will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.