The Saint Louis Zoo is an institution so revered that it rarely receives anything approaching critical coverage in the local media. Zoo officials don’t duck accountability. They’re just not often expected to explain themselves.
So it was jarring to hometown sensibilities in late May when a front-page story in The New York Times revealed this eye-opening nugget about the zoo’s priorities.
“St. Louis…has committed $20 million—or the equivalent of 40 percent of its annual operating budget—to building an enormous exhibit for polar bears—complete with a fake ice floe—even though its last polar bear died in 2009 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act makes it illegal to remove or rescue the bears from the wild.”
Really?
St. Louis is laying off police officers, and a whopping share of a taxpayer-supported institution’s budget is about to be wasted on a white elephant for white bears? And its existence might depend on smuggling gigantic illegal aliens across the Canadian border?
And why are we learning about this in a New York Times article? Why hasn’t this topic been debated in St. Louis?
The Times article was principally focused on the excruciating choices facing zoos because of the soaring number of endangered species. It was headlined “To Save Some Species, Zoos Must Let Others Die.”
The Saint Louis Zoo received top billing in the story, and though it was mostly cast in a favorable light, the polar-bear item was a real head-scratcher. Are we really spending 40 percent of the budget on an animal that we cannot even observe?
Maybe it’s just me. Others here saw the story and thought it was just great that the zoo made the national stage.
Two days after the article appeared, Deb Peterson observed in her Post-Dispatch column that it “was nice to see our world-class Saint Louis Zoo featured on the front page of The New York Times.” She even mentioned how zoo president Jeffrey Bonner had explained why “the zoo has committed $20 million (or 40 percent) of its budget to build a new polar bear exhibit.”
The St. Louis Business Journal chimed in the next day on its website with an item proclaiming, “The [Saint] Louis Zoo has been receiving some well-deserved recognition.” That item also repeated the $20 million commitment for the polar-bear exhibit, along with some celebratory comments from a zoo spokesperson.
Didn’t these newspapers realize that the Times piece was, at least to a degree, questioning the zoo’s priorities? Didn’t they notice the zinger?
Weren’t they the slightest bit curious as to why, in these challenging times, St. Louis would spend a lion’s share of the budget on unavailable polar bears?
It was a no-brainer for me to project righteous indignation on our weekly TV show Donnybrook, where I wondered aloud how such a decision could be made by the zoo with such little local scrutiny. How could we not at least be asking about this?
My fellow panelists instinctively rushed to the zoo’s defense, essentially arguing that the zoo does such a fine job that this couldn’t possibly be a problem. Obviously, that would be the popular stance.
I decided to call Bonner. Though he’s normally accessible, I doubted he would welcome this inquiry, since he must have enjoyed flying under the local radar to avoid Polar Bear Gate.
But Bonner was effusive about the new polar-bear project, beaming that it was so state-of-the-art, it met “the Manitoba standard” for quality, meaning it went beyond American requirements in providing the proper environment for polar bears. He spoke at length about the facility’s potential to produce groundbreaking genetic research that could prove vital to the future of the species.
Much of his scientific vocabulary soared above my pay grade. Zoo-speak, I figured, was a clever ploy to go on offense by playing defense. Besides, what difference would it make if importation of polar bears remained illegal and—as the Times implied—the new facility might remain empty, anyway?
It was time for the money shot. “I’m sure this is all wonderful, but why are these bears worth such a large chunk of the budget?” I asked. “And what happens when you build this lavish home for polar bears and nobody comes?”
I got my answer—right between the eyes.
Funny thing about that New York Times story. That $20 million polar-bear project actually is going to cost about $18 million—no big deal there. But though the cost of the project could technically be said to represent the “equivalent” of 40 percent of the zoo’s operating budget, the Old Gray Lady omitted a tiny little detail.
The money for the polar-bear exhibit isn’t coming out of the zoo’s operating budget at all—as in zero dollars. Instead, it’s coming out of a $120 million capital-improvements war chest that has mostly been raised in the past two years through the zoo’s Living Promise Campaign.
The new Sea Lion Sound is part of that campaign. It opened to rave reviews in June. The cost: $18 million, or in the parlance of the Times, the “equivalent” of about a third of the zoo’s operating budget.
Whatever.
Does the Times really not understand the difference between a capital campaign—funded entirely by private gifts as a long-term investment—and an operating budget? If all capital projects were judged by their “equivalence” to operating costs, nothing would ever get
built. Anywhere.
Investing 15 percent of a capital budget for polar bears—Bonner calls them “the iconic ambassador for global climate change”—is a perfectly sound idea. When it opens in 2017, the exhibit will provide a great opportunity for research and for public education and entertainment. That is, as long as the zoo is not afraid to offend the growing number of citizens convinced that Earth is 6,000 years old.
Bonner says global climate change is, among other things, causing sea ice to come in later and leave earlier in the arctic habitat of Canadian polar bears. The species is suddenly in new danger, and many orphaned cubs are faced with starvation.
Bonner believes it’s inevitable that zoos will eventually be allowed to save some of them, especially if there are cutting-edge research facilities with the potential to find ways to reintroduce genetic material that could save the species. He’s confident that an effort led by Missouri’s congressional delegation will persuade the federal government to relax the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow the rescue of some bear cubs.
The Times didn’t mention that, nor did it consider a backup scenario: Polar bears could be transferred from other zoos. The McDonnell Polar Bear Point in St. Louis will feature 7,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 67-foot-deep salt-water pool cooled to 68 degrees year-round, a rock cliff and simulated-ice barriers 17 feet high, natural substrates and digging pits for the animals, and—of course—a 1,257-square-foot, off-exhibit private space for chilling.
If you’re a polar bear, moving from an older facility to St. Louis’ new digs would be like upgrading from a Motel 6 to the Ritz-Carlton.
But while much of the Times’ skepticism— and mine—melts like a polar cap, there is one part of the story that truly ought to give St. Louis pause. It harks back to the headline, the notion that because of limited resources, zoos are facing wrenching choices about which endangered species they must abandon.
Here’s how the opinion of Dr. Steven L. Monfort, director of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, was framed in the Times piece.
“Dr. Monfort wants zoos to raise more money for the conservation of animals in the wild and to make that effort as important as erecting fancier accommodations for their captive collections. Zoos, he said, should build facilities—not necessarily open to the public—that are large enough to handle whole herds of animals so that more natural reproductive behavior can occur. And less emphasis should be placed on animals that are popular attractions but are doing fine in the wild…”
Here’s a question raised by neither the Times nor (God forbid) the local media: In light of the new challenges posed by an explosion of endangered species—and considering that these are a bit graver than the need to entertain the public—
might it not be time for the Saint Louis Zoo to seek new revenue sources?
The answer is emphatically yes. And the way to do it—more emphatically—is for St. Louis to abandon its outdated, irrational, and largely bogus claim to being a “free zoo.”
A generation ago, nearly every major city zoo in the nation was free. Today, only the Saint Louis Zoo and Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo can make that claim. And since both are heavily supported by the public, they’re really “taxpayer-subsidized zoos.” Not free ones.
The Saint Louis Zoo is one of the finest in the world and certainly worth paying to see. If you visit the San Diego Zoo, you pay at least $42 per adult and $32 per child for a day. Why should people from San Diego get into ours for free? Ditto for visitors from around the world.
It would indeed be fair and logical to keep the zoo free to residents of the city and county—since $20 million of their tax dollars support it annually—but according to zoo figures, no less than 56 percent of its 3 million annual visitors come from outside the city and county.
St. Louis’ quaint but antiquated obsession with the “free zoo” leaves literally tens of millions in the pockets of people who pay nothing to get in, even though they could afford to do so. Set against the backdrop of the Times story, that begs a new question.
How many endangered species could be saved if we inconvenienced tourists to pay for their enrichment at the Saint Louis Zoo?
Just a thought.
But don’t go criticizing our zoo.
Too many bear traps.
SLM co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m. 7
