How do AZA zoos decide on reciprocity level?

Zygodactyl

Zygodactyl

Well-Known Member
So I've realized that there's a fair number of really good zoos which don't offer any reciprocity for members of other AZA zoos. (I very nearly overlooked two zoos near me because they don't offer reciprocity and I was using the AZA reciprocity charts to plan my January excursions). Generally, it seems like the larger the zoo is the less likely it is to offer 100% reciprocity or reciprocity at all, which makes a fair amount of sense. San Diego doesn't need to offer reciprocity to attract visitors.

It also seems like zoos in the Northeast are least keen on reciprocity--I notice that none of the three AZA facilities I've been to in the Northeast (the Bronx Zoo, New England Aquarium, Mystic Aquarium) offers reciprocity--while zoos in the Midwest seem least likely to offer no reciprocity and most likely to offer entirely free admission. Since zoos in the Northeast seem to be less popular than Midwestern Zoos this also makes sense. (As a Northeasterner, I want to say it's because there's nothing else to do in in the Midwest, even though I know intellectually that isn't true.)

However within a region, what would makes the Houston Zoo decide to offer 100% reciprocity, Dallas and San Antonio offer 50%, and Ft. Worth and Moody Gardens offer none? (Except Moody Gardens, which has a zoo and aquarium for which a combined ticket is $30, each of these zoos charges about $15 general admission and each seems to be pretty well regarded.)

On a somewhat related note, how do zoos decide on whether to offer membership as a cheap, bare-bones package or an expense a-la-carte one? For example San Antonio membership is $30 and gets you in, and friends on seven designated days a year, while Houston charges $70, allows you to bring a friend every time, and offers all sorts of benefits that would be awesome if one lived in Houston. (Despite their differences in reciprocity policy, Moody Gardens has the same model as Houston, and charges $90 for membership.)
 
I have only guesses to your question, not hard data.

San Diego has never offered any reciprocity, nor to my knowledge have any of the major aquariums in North America. The Birch Aquarium in San Diego offered it briefly, but it quickly disappeared. My guess is that since San Diego and WCS are very large organizations that have relatively little governmental support and huge operational expenses that they need every revenue stream they can get. As you point out they are also major tourist destinations (San Diego Zoo and Central Park Zoo at least), so offering reciprocity as a marketing tool probably makes no sense to them.

Likewise aquariums are very expensive to operate and not offering reciprocity is likely a budgetary issue for them.

In the 21st century it seems like most AZA zoos have shifted from a free reciprocal admission model to a 50% off one. This correlates with the economic hardships of the last decade+ and the never-ending increases in expense of maintaining living collections. Also many zoos have switched over to a non-profit model from a government run model (the San Diego and WCS model) which has them trying to maximize every revenue stream that they can.

Sea World, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and Busch Gardens are all commercial enterprises that exist to maximize profit for their shareholders so they obviously reject any reciprocity as part of their business model.
 
I always forget that there are for-profit AZA zoos. Running live animal collections has never seemed like a very profitable endeavor unless--like Disney and some places in Texas do--you turn it into a resort or--like many places in Texas do--you get a large part of your income from hunting.

This is a bit of a tangent, but what's with the AZA's opposition to sustainable hunting anyways? I'm not sure whether it's an official policy or just a remarkable act of groupthink, but I recall one story where a guy saved the scimitar oryx by gathering the animals from zoos, breeding them at a loss, then selling them to hunting ranches. The captive population has exploded, and in response the AZA changed their rules to forbid any AZA zoo giving their animals to a program who will sell them to hunting ranches.

Are aquaria more expensive than aviaries? I get the hoofstock are relatively cheap, but as someone who looked into both aquariums and aviculture, it seems like at least on a hobby level aquarium animals are generally cheaper than birds to keep on a per-animal basis, and also cheaper to buy and maintain for animals with similar levels of difficulty.

Also, the Texas State Aquarium offers 50% reciprocity but it's apparently not very well thought of. It will be interesting to see whether they still offer it after the big expansion is completed.
 
Zygodactyl said:
This is a bit of a tangent, but what's with the AZA's opposition to sustainable hunting anyways? I'm not sure whether it's an official policy or just a remarkable act of groupthink, but I recall one story where a guy saved the scimitar oryx by gathering the animals from zoos, breeding them at a loss, then selling them to hunting ranches. The captive population has exploded, and in response the AZA changed their rules to forbid any AZA zoo giving their animals to a program who will sell them to hunting ranches.

Are aquaria more expensive than aviaries? I get the hoofstock are relatively cheap, but as someone who looked into both aquariums and aviculture, it seems like at least on a hobby level aquarium animals are generally cheaper than birds to keep on a per-animal basis, and also cheaper to buy and maintain for animals with similar levels of difficulty.
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The refusal to allow AZA animals to end up at hunting ranches is most likely an ethics-related decision. I believe this is also what drives the exclusivity of our breeding programs, and why it is rare for program animals to be declared "surplus" and transferred out to less reputable non-AZA zoos (although this does happen, especially with more common species).

Also, I would think that aquaria would be more expensive than aviaries, the chief reason being that the day-to-day operations of aquariums depend on complex and expensive machinery to maintain the enclosures. Also, I imagine that the specialized gear needed to clean the tanks and handle/separate the animals is not cheap either.
 
@Coelacanth18 : Do you work for an AZA zoo, then? Any rate, the rules prohibit allowing animals to be transferred to any facility that might transfer them or their descendants to be transferred to a hunting ranch. It was added to the ethics code after the recovery of the scimitar oryx--an animal that had been breeding poorly in zoos but did amazingly on Texas ranches. They did so well that the guy who had intended to take them and breed them them at a loss as a community serviced realized that he couldn't afford to maintain the numbers on his own ranch, and starting selling them to hunting ranches on the condition that allocate a certain number for conservation purposes. I find it baffling that the AZA believes that a well-designed program which saved a species is so horrifyingly unethical that they needed to amend their rules to prevent a repeat.

Actually, when I think about it, hobby aviculture usually involves a large number of aviaries while hobby aquariums involve a smaller number of mixed-species tanks (most commonly a single tank). As the size of an operation increases, the number of birds per cubic foot of enclosure space would increase exponentially, while the number of animals per aquarium would increase linearly. Moreover aquariums almost always need fancy machinery and aviaries often don't even need climate control. The cost of aviaries is mostly in the initial enclosures and initial populations of birds; maintenance costs are basically food and the occasional vet bill. So you might expect that aviary costs grow logarithmically, while aquarium costs would increase linearly. I wonder if that's actually the case.
 
@Zygodactyl : I do not work for an AZA zoo, nor do I have an opinion on the issue one way or another. I was simply stating what I believe to be the reasoning behind that prohibition along with other rules and restrictions they have created. I did say "our breeding programs", but only to signify that it is you and I's regional zoo association, not that I myself work for an AZA facility. As for the model that was created for the scimitar-horned oryx, I agree that it was very successful for that species.
 
I have no answers, but as someone who has been a member of zoos well over two decades I have definitely noticed the change in percentage. Fifteen or twenty years ago the vast majority on the list offered free admission and only a handful were fifty percent. Now almost all of them are fifty percent, with only a couple still at free admission.

Some non-AZA facilities also offer it. There is (or there was) an official reciprocity list that I used to get when I was a member of Exotic Feline Breeding Compound (which I have not been for several years). It had maybe twenty to thirty facilities listed? I have also visited at least one unaccredited zoo - Wildlife West in New Mexico - which will let you in free if you are a member of any zoo. Their admission is (or was on my last visit) only five bucks and they are run by volunteers to care for rescued animals. They let me in free but they receive so few visitors that I felt guilty and just left a five dollar donation on my way out.
 
I have my local zoo's website reciprocity list open now. It says free or discounted admission to over 160 zoos and aquariums. Let us see how many aquariums are listed? (The first one I visited two months ago and paid full price because I didn't know they were on the list!)

Alaska Sealife Center
Aquarium of the Bay
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium
Mote Marine Aquarium
Florida Aquarium
National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium
Sea Life (Missouri)
Albuquerque Aquarium
North Carolina Aquarium (all three locations)
Texas State Aquarium
 
 
How can anyone say hunting is at odds with conservation? With all the actual historical examples that prove otherwise? Hunting one individual has nothing to do with preservation of a species, unless of course the numbers are so low the species isn't viable anyway.
 
Or you know actual examples like White Rhino, Scimitar, Whitetail Deer, Elk, various game birds, and now Bongo.
 
I appreciate that in cases such as White Rhino, Whitetail Deer, gamebirds and Elk these refer to where eradication of animals unsustainable to a healthy population was ultimately beneficial to such a cause - though as far as Scimitar-horned Oryx [I believe that is what you refer to with 'scimitar'] and Mountain Bongo are going, one of which is classified as 'Critically Endangered' the other absent from its former range altogether - I can only presume that you are referring to game-farms where such species are raised to be killed later in life [is this even the case with Bongo at all?] - which, I suppose increases the number of said animal population, but is, by nature, unbeneficial to long-term conservation.
That is to say, in many cases of endangered species - which I believe is what major zoos are referring to - such a system of 'sustainable hunting' is rather non-existent.
 
tschandler71 said:
How can anyone say hunting is at odds with conservation? With all the actual historical examples that prove otherwise? Hunting one individual has nothing to do with preservation of a species, unless of course the numbers are so low the species isn't viable anyway.
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"How can anyone say hunting is at odds with conservation?"

Are you genuinely confused by this? I think even if you have a pro-hunting opinion it shouldn't be difficult to discern why some question the practice. Many conservationists are motivated to keep things from dying, hunting by definition involves death. Poachers kill on average two rhinoceros a day in Africa and are their primary threat... would allowing hunters to bag two a day help conserve them?

You have created a binary between species where either one individual has no impact on the population and they do but the population is not viable.

The Sumatran rhimoceros is probably not viable and will likely be extinct in a decade. Do you think allowing them to be hunted is warranted? How do you think that may help conservation? Would it be unwarranted to advise hunting a southern white rhinoceros instead which is in less direct conservation need but more numerous?

There are nearly eight billion humans and not one of them would argue those numbers are significant enough to make individual losses acceptable.

The California condor bounced back from twenty two individuals. The current population is over five hundred. That small population of twenty two was viable and has retained genomic diversity and I don't think think anyone would argue that losing a few of those twenty two animals wouldn't have impacted that recovery.

Game farms preserving a couple hoofstock in Texas doesn't mean those species are now recovered to the levels of viability in the wild that you outlined which undermines your case by suggesting these were never success stories in the first place?

I can't say I'd be concerned about anyone killing invasive pythons in the everglades but I wouldn't say that's what anyone means when they defend hunting.

Regardless of position on hunting, I don't understand this line of argument.
 
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JVM said:
Poachers kill on average two rhinoceros a day in Africa and are their primary threat... would allowing hunters to bag two a day help conserve them?
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Two deaths a day may sound like a lot, and yet unfortunately there are still other species who are being killed at much faster rates. 96 elephants are killed every day for their ivory in Africa alone-- and that is one every 15 minutes.
 
I am heavily in favor of the use of hunting in conservation, , as long as it is regulated so that it can be done at sustainable levels. For some species, even some common ones, that means no hunting at all.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
Two deaths a day may sound like a lot, and yet unfortunately there are still other species who are being killed at much faster rates. 96 elephants are killed every day for their ivory in Africa alone-- and that is one every 15 minutes.
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I'm not making light of the plight of elephant poaching, its obviously a very serious issue that needs to be dealt with. But those numbers sound off... That would be over 35,000 elephants a year. And the population in Africa is around 400,000 according to different conservation websites I've seen. So they're going to go extinct in around 10 years?

EDIT: I've looked up that 96 a day figure and have found articles from as far back as 2016 with that number and also estimates of the population at 400,000. Yet the 2022 population is at a similar estimate, so it doesn't seem these projections were very accurate.
 
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SusScrofa said:
I'm not making light of the plight of elephant poaching, its obviously a very serious issue that needs to be dealt with. But those numbers sound off... That would be over 35,000 elephants a year. And the population in Africa is around 400,000 according to different conservation websites I've seen. So they're going to go extinct in around 10 years?

EDIT: I've looked up that 96 a day figure and have found articles from as far back as 2016 with that number and also estimates of the population at 400,000. Yet the 2022 population is at a similar estimate, so it doesn't seem these projections were very accurate.
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I got that number from the AZA and WCS websites, so definitely from a reliable source. The WCS even ran a major campaign, called the 96 Elephants Campaign, advocating for elephant conservation using this statistic. But you do have a point that it is possible that by now the stats may be outdated.
 
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