Well, this complicates the push for pandas. A new report by an SF Zoo oversight commission describes the facility as “dilapidated,” “extremely outdated,” and says parts of the zoo are even “crawling with rodents.”
It’s no secret that the Oakland Zoo is just a way better zoo than the San Francisco Zoo. The Oakland Zoo routinely takes in and rescues injured animals, and they have magnificent attractions like Glowfari and an aerial gondola. The 95-year-old San Francisco Zoo lags in terms of these attractions and animal welfare benefits, was hit with a Chronicle exposé on safety conditions this year, and has faced longstanding charges of nepotism in its leadership.
Oh, and some of you may remember a certain Christmas Day 2007 incident involving Tatiana the Tiger.
The SF Zoo just got hit with its worst news in quite some time, as the Chronicle brings word of a new report describing the zoo as “unsafe for visitors and animals.” That report also describes the zoo as “dilapidated,” “extremely outdated,” and says that at the zoo’s enclosure for one species of monkeys, “Zoo staff report the cages are also crawling with rodents.”
The full 11-page report is from a city commission called the San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commission (which is entirely separate from the city department SF Animal Care & Control). “Many of the zoo's enclosures are extremely outdated and fail to meet the criteria outlined above from an animal welfare perspective," the report says, per KTVU. "Parts of the zoo are best described as dilapidated.”
While the zoo does meet the minimum accreditation standards of the set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) licensing authority, unlike the beleaguered Aquarium by the Bay in Fisherman’s Wharf, it does not exceed these standards by much.
The report is particularly critical of a lion habitat. “We had difficulty locating the lone lion hiding under a concrete table in a WPA-era habitat (90 years old),” according to the report. “The safety measures to meet the AZA and USDA enclosure requirements are minimal and even more frightening — unsafe for the animals and visitors.”
The report also complains that a kangaroo habitat lacks running water, a gorilla habitat often floods during heavy rains, and notes a koala habitat that “can only hold one koala at a time. Currently, the zoo has three koalas, which means two cannot go outside daily."
And if you’re a Moo Deng fan, you may know the zoo has a pygmy hippo, but the reports says his “outdoor pool has no heater. They are a western African species that live in a warm and humid climate, not San Francisco temperatures.”
This controversy will inevitably extend to Mayor London Breed’s quest to get pandas at the zoo, though Breed’s team is somehow spinning this as a positive for the panda push.
“The mayor agrees the zoo is in need of revitalization, which is why bringing a global attraction such as the pandas would be ideal — to expedite and invest in improvements and enhancements where necessary,” Breed spokesperson Parisa Safarzadeh told the Chronicle.
That may be good spin, but the city is running a giant deficit and making budget cuts. Counting on the panda attraction to somehow create revenue that provides the zoo a suitable habitat for those bears may be, well, putting the cart before the pandas.
Image: Jonathan L. via Yelp
