Birmingham Zoo

The Birmingham Zoo is a major zoological park founded in 1950. The 50 acre site is home to approximately 750 animals of 250 species including many endangered species from six continents. The facility, which is managed by a private non-profit corporation, participates heavily in Species Survival Programs. It is located, along with the Botanical Gardens, in Lane Park near the western terminus of Highway 280 at Highway 31 on the southern slope of Red Mountain.

Early History

The origins of the Birmingham Zoo start with a small menagerie of exotic animals kept in a Southside firehouse. As the collection grew it was moved first to Magnolia Park (now Brother Bryan Park) and then to Avondale Park. At the time, the collection consisted mainly of non-exotic animals, except for "Miss Fancy," a lone elephant donated by the Birmingham Advertising Club which had purchased it as a promotional novelty from a struggling circus stranded in the city.

As the collection grew in size and scope, city leaders contacted the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, which had drawn up plans for a system of parks in Birmingham, for advice about housing a zoological collection. They were put in contact with the few municipal zoos existing in that period and plans began for providing a new permanent home for the growing attraction.

Land purchase

Birmingham, under mayor A. O. Lane, had purchased land on the south of Red Mountain between 1889 and 1892. The former Red Mountain Cemetery, a pauper's cemetery was part of the parcel that was dedicated as a city park in 1934. The Works Progress Administration built a fish hatchery from the Hartselle sandstone quarried out of the mountain within the park's borders. The hatchery was fed by a natural spring and provided stock for recreational lakes in the region until the zoo took over the park.

The first source of post-war support for a new zoo came from the Birmingham Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees). In 1946 Elton B. Stephens chaired a Jaycees committee to create a new zoo for the city of Birmingham. In 1949, then Birmingham mayor, James W. Morgan, a key supporter of the development, began an initiative to help in the planning and development of a city zoo. He met early resistance from the Birmingham Parks and Recreation Board and his fellow commissioners.

A zoo commission was also established, and it decided to build the zoo on 50 acres of land on the southern foot of Red Mountain with a budget of $250,000. A much larger parcel of land that included the zoo parcel was incorporated into the City of Birmingham and was named Lane Park, home of the zoo as well as the neighboring botanical gardens. The plan met fierce resistance from Mountain Brook residents who feared the noise and traffic that a public attraction would bring. Morgan answered the petitioners patiently and explained that the zoo he envisioned would not become an amusement park.

Jimmy Morgan Zoo

Postcard view of Monkey Island

The $250,000 budget would be spent to build six exhibits with the opening of the zoo that included Monkey Island, an elephant house, Bear Moat, birdhouse, snake pit and seal pool. The funds were raised through private donations, charter memberships, and in-kind donations from a broad base of community and business supporters.

The zoo, now known as the Jimmy Morgan Zoo, opened its doors with Monkey Island as its first official exhibit on April 2, 1955. The Zoo operated as a quasi-private venture until the City of Birmingham decided to assume responsibility in November of that year. The city changed the name to the Birmingham Zoo, and set an annual budget of $663,000 for its first year under city control. In 1958 a Kiddie Zoo attraction was opened with more than 100 baby animals. The zoo traded a pair of Siberian Tiger cubs for a pair of Siamese "black panthers" (melanistic leopards) in 1959, displaying them in the primate house.

Challenges

In 1960 Bob Truett was hired as the zoo's new director. What he found was a sprawling zoo of cheaply-constructed buildings housing "miserable roadside menageries". He criticized the professionalism of his predecessor, a former carnival manager. He reported that animals had been feeding on discards from grocery stores and that some of the keepers had been guilty of cruelty. He began a long process to bring the zoo up to contemporary standards of animal care without much financial support from the city. With care of the collection as the top priority, other parts of the operation suffered such as building maintenance, landscaping and customer service. The inadequacy of the zoo's sewer system caused repeated flooding and led to the drowning death of a six-day old polar bear cub.

In the early 1960s the City Council created a Birmingham Zoological Society as a fund-raising organization, but donations didn't begin to keep up with declining appropriations as the city prioritized other needs. Though the animal collection and annual attendance kept growing, the budget shrank. In 1969 the zoo's $297,000 budget was used to pay 28 employees to care for 1,045 animals for the benefit of 415,513 visitors. Truett was vocal about the difficulties of "running a large zoo on a small zoo budget", and threatened to close the zoo for three months a year and sell off animals. A series of master plans were developed but little work was done to improve the situation.

An exception was the entrance plaza and offices constructed in 1979 for about $350,000. A wood-sided one-story building wraps around three sides of an entrance plaza facing the fish hatcheries. The structure contains classrooms, offices, ticket windows, a gift shop and restrooms. Still, appropriations from the city remained small and the zoological society did not bring much in the way of leadership. The condition of facilities continued to decline until, in the late 1990s, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association finally withdrew its accreditation.

In 1999, Birmingham mayor Richard Arrington led the way for privatization of the zoo, recruiting community leaders to serve as the first board of directors of a new organization, Birmingham Zoo, Inc. (BZI) The new organization established a transitional funding package with contributions from four government entities to support BZI during its first five years of operation.

Today

BZI undertook an intense 18-month effort to address the most pressing and immediate problems so that the zoo could become accredited by the AZA once again, ranking the Zoo in the top 10% of animal holding facilities in the nation. The Zoo also received 501(c)(3) status from the IRS, and the first major capital campaign was launched in January 2001.

William R. Foster, DVM, joined the Zoo as Chief Executive Officer in January 2004. Foster, a veterinarian and leading zoo management authority on the national scene, is president-elect of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and was president and executive director of the Louisville Zoo.

In the short time following this privatization, the Birmingham Zoo has hosted traveling exhibits of bats, koalas and black-footed penguins, added permanent exhibits of a Komodo dragon and interactive lorikeet aviary, and regained AZA accreditation. The Zoo completed the Junior League of Birmingham - Hugh Kaul Children's Zoo, a $15 million anchor exhibit dedicated to children and devoted to urban, rural and wild animals and environs of Alabama in April 2005, its 50th anniversary of operation.

The zoo drew 434,497 visitors in 2008, down from a record 515,00 visitors in 2007. The recent low year was 296,102 in 1998 and the previous high was 505,045 in 1989. The largest single-day attendance record was set on March 17, 2009 with 6,845 visitors who got to meet newly-arrived wombats Victoria and Wilbur.

In October 2006 the Zoo was reaccredited by the AZA for a the next 5 years. The zoo currently houses approximately 750 animals of 250 species.

Attractions/Exhibits

See also Category:Zoo animals.

Current exhibits Alabama Wilds Alligator Swamp Bird Aviary Birmingham Zoo Express Bison Butterfly Encounter (Late spring through early fall) Elephant House Flamingo Lagoon Junior League of Birmingham-Hugh Kaul Children’s Zoo Alabama Barn Carousel Kangaroo Kountry Lorikeet House Predator building Primate building Reptile House, including the Komodo Dragon exhibit Trails of Africa (opening 2010) Savannah Giraffe House Sea Lion Pool Waterfowl Ponds

Former exhibits Bear Moat (1957–2004) Big cat exhibit (?–1992) Kiddie Zoo (1958–?) Monkey Island (1955–2009)

Directors

• Tom Briskey (1950s-60s)
• Bob Truett
• Jack Throp (1989-1992)
• Jerry Wallace
• Bill Foster (2004 - present)

References

• Hogan, Ben (January 1969) "To 'Mr. Birmingham' the zoo is his trophy" Birmingham News
• Wilson, Mary Booth (December 21, 1969) "Jimmy Morgan Zoo needs lots of money." Birmingham News
• "Birmingham Zoo." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 May 2006, 13:57 UTC. 9 May 2006, 14:17 [1].
• HIckerson, Patrick. (May 9, 2006) "City zoo on upswing; tops list of tourist draws". Birmingham News.
• "Zoo attendance soars." (March 6, 2007) Birmingham News.
• Thornton, William (December 28, 2009) "Birmingham zookeepers keep circle of life turning." Birmingham News

External links

• Birmingham Zoo website