Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens Does anybody remember the LA Zoo penguin massacre?

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I just found this article when researching the history of penguins at the La Zoo. It says that 44 penguins were killed at the zoo over a decade. How did that happen? Were they all eaten by coyotes?

Was anybody here around when that happened?

Penguin Exhibit On Thin Ice - Chicago Tribune

Update:

Apparently I had some facts confused in that it was flamingoes getting eaten by coyotes (although maybe they picked off some of the penguins too?).
http://articles.sfgate.com/1995-02-...urator-les-schobert-outgoing-zoo-troubled-zoo
 
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I do remember that, it was damage to the perimeter fences that allowed the wild coyotes in from the surrounding Griffith Park.
 
I wonder what Illinois zoo received them. I also wonder if LA will try to bring them back in the future (I imagine they would at some point).
 
I was living near the zoo at the time and was a member and yes I remember it. I am referring to the penguins (not the flamingoes, which I believe happened after I moved to Arizona). They had African penguins in a cement grotto in front of the old alligator exhibit (the area which I believe is now Australia). From what I recall they died of disease. I do not recall if all died or if most died and the remaining few were shipped out.
 
Well maybe I was not still living there. I just checked the brief Chicago Tribune article and it is dated 1995. I moved to Arizona in 1993. I must have heard about it but I do remember seeing the penguins in their old exhibit.
 
There were penguins at the LA Zoo when I visited it in 1989. They were gone in 1997 when I next visited, so that brackets the end of the LA Zoo penguin exhibit.

I have not heard any rumors or speculation about the return of penguins to the LA Zoo. The only public hint from the zoo about the new master plan is that it will likely include a California condor exhibit. Based on the current state of exhibits I would guess that the next master plan will probably focus on replacing the aging African and Asian megafauna exhibits (giraffes, lions, tigers, rhinos, hippos, zebra, etc.) with new exhibits for these species and roundhouses with modern bird and primate exhibits. Conceivably African penguins could show up in the plan, but I would be surprised.
 
@DavidBrown : what does funding look like for LA at the moment? Do you think that anything from the new master plan will start construction soon or is there going to be a hiatus on renovation now that RotA is finished?
 
Coelacanth18 said:
@DavidBrown : what does funding look like for LA at the moment? Do you think that anything from the new master plan will start construction soon or is there going to be a hiatus on renovation now that RotA is finished?
Click to expand...

It's a great question to which I have no real insight. The new master plan is still in development so we, the public, have no idea what is in it. My guess is that its development may be tied to a fundraising strategy. The prior master plan was funded by a city voter-approved bond initiative in 1998. If the economic and political climate is amenable when the new master plan comes out a new bond initiative might be considered.
 
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