San Francisco Zoo San Francisco Zoo News 2024

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How is the SF Zoo going to fund this effort?

Further, all the backlog, maintenance issues and need for new modern age top noch exclosures and exhibits and continues to ignore the woes besetting the SF Zoo ... How much is needed to turn the zoo around?

(Admittedly, NOT under CURRENT management which has shown itself to be wholly inadequate bordering on the incompetent. Something got to give .... SOON!).

It's been discussed in this thread earlier, but the City has reached fundraising targets of $20 million for construction of the exhibit and a multi-year lease of the pandas.
 
Planning documents recently uploaded for proposed jaguar and panda exhibits.
Jaguar exhibit to be renovated from the previous sea lion exhibit. Notably for the panda exhibit, the entire Lion House is for pandas with 2 outdoor yards and 2 new dayrooms for indoor viewing.

Accela Citizen Access
Panda record number: 2024-011135PRJ
Jaguar record number: 2024-011174PRJ
(Plans with renders in attachments)
 
Planning documents recently uploaded for proposed jaguar and panda exhibits.
Jaguar exhibit to be renovated from the previous sea lion exhibit. Notably for the panda exhibit, the entire Lion House is for pandas with 2 outdoor yards and 2 new dayrooms for indoor viewing.

Accela Citizen Access
Panda record number: 2024-011135PRJ
Jaguar record number: 2024-011174PRJ
(Plans with renders in attachments)
So what'll happen to the lions then?
 
The Zoo has gradually depleted its collection over the past few years, especially during and since the pandemic. In the last 6ish years they've gone from:

1. 8 monkey species to 2
2. 5 marsupial species to 2
3. 6 species/subspecies of cat to 4 (no more tigers)
4. No more wild camelids
5. No savannah antelope species
6. 3 species of large flightless bird down to 2
7. No more otters
8. No more pinnipeds
9. No more lesser apes
10. They just sent away their pygmy hippo- stupid move since Moo Deng has made Pygmy hippos really popular.
 
Proposed lion exhibit located west of the African savanna if the panda plan moves forward:
View attachment 755235

Accela Citizen Access
Record: 2024-011389PRJ

So their contingency plan is to shoehorn a mediocre-sized entirely new exhibit from the ground up by carving out a chunk of an existing exhibit and forcing a re-route of their main path. Right. This whole panda deal is costing them more by the minute.
 
I would rather they send away the lions for now then give them this small exhibit which is the result of short term thinking. Its about a quarter acre from my quick estimate and only has one yard. This makes it just slightly larger than one of the 2 lion yards they currently have. To be honest none of this is shocking, but its sad that the zoo’s proposals for its future are so weak.
 
Its about a quarter acre from my quick estimate and only has one yard. This makes it just slightly larger than one of the 2 lion yards they currently have.

By the time everything necessary gets put in, I'm not sure it'll actually be larger than one of the existing exhibits. The suggested placement leaves very little flexibility in adjusting for issues related to nearby infrastructure. It's a downgrade either way as there is only space for one habitat. Also a nuisance for the carnivore keepers as it will be the only carnivore exhibit anywhere near that side of the zoo other than the Fossa in the primate complex.

To be honest none of this is shocking, but its sad that the zoo’s proposals for its future are so weak.

Indeed. Though not really unexpected given they retain a director who had no prior zoo experience and continues to draw nothing but frustration from her staff...
 
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