By Ben Joravsky
There are three current projects: rebuilding the east entrance, adding an “endangered-species carousel,” and building a new large-mammals habitat. Mary Ann Schultz, the zoo’s director of public affairs, says the new east entrance is needed because “right now there’s no real entrance to the zoo there. Our goal is to create an entranceway so there’s a clear arrival gate to the zoo. The new entrance will have a beautiful wrought-iron archway with sculpted animals and metal vines. It will provide a great opportunity if people want to take a picture.”
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The carousel, she says, will be “adorned with 48 animals and two chariots depicting endangered animals from around the world” and will be a money-raising educational tool, enabling officials to offset operating expenses and keep the zoo’s admission free. “We did a survey five years ago and found out that people were having shorter visits here. They weren’t eating here. So we are doing things to make the visits better.”
The more Haring talked about all the construction with zoo friends and fellow volunteers, including Newfeld, the more outrageous it seemed. They began to think the zoo had lost all sense of its educational mission. Why, they wondered, was a new eastern entrance needed, given that most of the people entering from that side are coming from the zoo’s parking lot and presumably can figure out where the entrance is? And what’s with the carousel? Even if more children would rather ride on a fake tiger than see or read about the real thing, so what? “It’s a zoo, not an amusement park,” says Newfeld. “You would think a zoo would be entertaining enough without the carousel. This won’t be about educating children about wildlife in its natural habitat. It’s absurd. They’ll be riding on gorillas and tigers? Hey, gorillas aren’t cuddly and tigers aren’t pussycats. They’re endangered species.”
Nonetheless, Haring and Newfeld are looking for allies in the larger environmental community. And so it was that one recent Tuesday afternoon they led Jim DeHorn of the Openlands Project’s Treekeepers Program on a tour of the zoo.
“There are not igloos at the north pole for that matter,” said Newfeld.
They wound up outside the large-mammal house on the northwest end of the zoo. A sign said that the animals–giraffes and elephants and wolves–would return once the project is over. “I have no problem with them improving the zoo, but this is getting absurd,” said Newfeld, raising her voice to be heard above the bulldozer. “Where are the animals? This is not supposed to be a construction project or an amusement park–it’s supposed to be a zoo.”
