The Zoo has been managed by the nonprofit Sacramento Zoological Society—the management model we would like to see for the Parkway—for ten years this month.
The Zoo property, buildings and animal collection remain assets of the city of Sacramento.
The Society, formed in 1957, assumed daily financial management of the Zoo from the city in July 1997. Since its inception, the society has served as the fund-raising organization for the Zoo, providing funds for habitat improvement, education and conservation programs.
Editorial Notebook: Yes, it's all happening at the zoo
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, July 28, 2007
The Sacramento Zoo is alive and well. I can report that authoritatively, because I went there last weekend after receiving a scary e-mail from a reader.
"What has happened to our zoo?" she wrote. "No elephants, hippos, bears and only one species of large cat, and only two sets of primates. No monkeys, no gorillas."
OK, there were no elephants, hippos, monkeys or gorillas. But -- whew! -- she got the rest of it wrong, as my 5-year-old investigative sidekick, Severin Donner, and I found out.
We saw three young Sumatran tigers taking turns gnawing on a piece of wood in an open-air enclosure. Right next door a lion blithely ignored two boys that kept trying to growl at it. And around the corners were a big, snoozing jaguar and a snow leopard.
As for the primates, we spotted a white-haired gibbon, two reddish-brown orangutans with the longest dreadlocks imaginable and two chimpanzees having a dandy time swinging from ropes and munching on leaves.
