ZOOS & AQUARIUMS
In August 2014, TripAdvisor said Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo was the best in the world. How does your zoo engage with the public? We’re part of the community and the people of Omaha really love their zoo. We engage with people from an early age, and we have high school, kindergarten and after-school programmes to turn children into passionate wildlife protectors.
The zoo is renowned for its conservation eff orts. Can you give us some examples? We have an extensive fi eld programme, in South Africa, and with parks in Swaziland to help rhinos. We have a major fi eld effort in Madagascar and a plant conservation unit that works in Bermuda and the US. At the zoo, we have our amphibian breeding centre. We’ve been breeding thousands of Houston toads, Puerto Rican crested toads and other amphibians to return to the wild. These are things zoos can do to make a real difference. It’s still important to us to be a great Saturday afternoon visit for families, and we need to continue that to have a successful fi nancial model, but we understand that we have a greater responsibility to animals in the wild and that zoos and aquariums need to be the reservoir for these assurance populations.
What do you think are the main challenges facing zoos and aquariums? Having enough space to build these assurance populations in reasonable
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Exhibits like San Diego Zoo’s Elephant Care Centre and the Animal Care Centre at Busch Gardens are a hands-on way of educating the public
numbers is a major challenge. Zoos have moved from this postage-stamp collection, where if you had two of something that nobody else had, then that was a really big deal. Now, if you have two of something nobody else has, then it’s a dead end and it doesn’t contribute to sustainability. Zoos have been working together since 1980 and we’ve been good accountants in putting together stud books, breeding programmes, deciding who should pair with who based on genetics and demographics. What’s changing now is we need to understand those animals that aren’t breeding. Now we can possibly use assisted reproduction technologies or import more founders to strengthen our populations genetically. It’s problem solving. A perennial challenge is funding. At
my zoo I have to fund 89 per cent of the operation. I have to think of ways to generate revenue that aren’t always necessarily related to raising the admission fees. Admission fees at our park are only 25 per cent of our total revenue, while 30 years ago they were almost all of it. By holding the admission fees down, more people can visit, whatever their income. However, there are many ways to spend money inside the zoo on an elective basis.
Exhibits work for us more than eight hours a day now: we host weddings, corporate events, sleepovers at the aquarium and a camp next to the lion exhibit – all ways to make the zoo work after hours.
Do aquariums face the same challenges? One of the major problems is with breeding and raising fi sh. We can breed and recover eggs and live young, but it’s very diffi cult to feed these young fi sh. In the wild, they eat microscopic plankton among other things that can in and of themselves be diffi cult to raise. There’s a research effort supported by the University of Florida and Seaworld to develop a way to culture the organisms that the fi sh will eat.
How would you describe the overall sentiment in the industry? In the US, visitor numbers are up – 180 million people a year go to accredited zoos in North America. That’s more than all of the professional sports together – football, basketball, baseball: zoos draw more. They’re educational and it’s family time, but one of the things we’re working on is understanding our responsibility beyond a nice Saturday afternoon, our responsibility to the animals in the wild, and then building public awareness.
I think the public expects us not only to exhibit animals but to be looking out for them in the wild. With the rapid decline right now of species in the wild, the role of zoos is becoming even more important. That’s why the SAFE initiative is so important. ●
AM 2 2015 ©CYBERTREK 2015
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