Zoo To You Too
San Diego is nothing if not a Zoo town. We actually have what I would call two zoos here. They are both part of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the one is the world famous Zoo near Balboa Park in the middle of the city. The other is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and it is very near where we live in Escondido. The main Zoo is 100 acres and is the most visited zoo in the United States. It was the result of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, a sort of World’s Fair that included the exposition of exotic animals. The story goes that the exhibitors abandoned the animals rather than take them back to their natural habitat and that once they were set free, it was left to the City to gather them up and figure out what to do with them. Luckily, one of the attendees of the Exposition was so taken by the animals that he (Harry Wegeforth) funded the start of a zoo, which at that time was a concept only really pursued in the U.S. in New York and the Bronx. It was a pioneer in cageless enclosures for the animals.
Zoos have been around since the time of the Egyptians as man has long been fascinated by and wanting to learn more about animals. Chinese emperors and Middle Eastern Sultans kept animal menageries that were effectively private zoos. Alexander the Great collected exotic animals that he sent back to Greece, and of course, Romans kept beasts as part of their gladiatorial games in the Coliseum. Modern day zoos for the public go back to Vienna and various cities in Europe including Berlin and London. Louis the XIV had his zoo at Versailles. Even Aztec rulers like Moctezuma kept animal parks to amaze his guests.
In addition to the main San Diego Zoo, the Safari Park boasts 1,800 acres and wonderful wildlife preserves that can be visited by safari truck, making you feel like you are in Africa, braving the wild animals in their natural habitat.
Almost everyone who visits us in San Diego sooner or later wants to go to the Zoo or the Safari Park or both. Kim and I have been many times, but we always enjoy the outing so we tend to go along, unlike those who come to visit Disneyland or Legoland and such. There is something about seeing wild animals and communing with nature which just feels pleasant and is never a waste of time. In appreciation of my more limited tolerance for these sorts of kid outings, Kim and I have, at various times, been members of the Zoo, but that has recently been allowed to lapse. One of the things they let you do is to apply a recent visit’s entry fees to your membership account, so since we were there with the grandkids today, she had them do just that and signed up for the difference between that and the full membership for the two of us. She knows that her friends Lenny and then Candice are coming for visits soon, so the memberships will not go to waste. There is something very right feeling about being members of the Zoo.
I am reminded of a funny incident once at the Staten Island Zoo. To begin with, while being a pleasant enough zoo and one that even has its own cheetah run, the Staten Island Zoo is no award-winner. We went once with the same crowd we went with yesterday, daughter Carolyn and granddaughters Charlotte and Evelyn. The one-time cost for the five of us was something like $80 ($20 per adult and $10 per child). A family membership for four was $100. I suggested to the ticket booth attendant that I would buy a family membership if he let me in this once with all five of us for the $100 (I was literally holding out a $100 bill to him at the time). He said that he would still have to charge me an added $20 for another adult. I explained to him that if I was offering to give him $100 and was unlikely to ever go back to the Staten Island Zoo, he and the Zoo were better off just taking my $100. I went on to say that even if I did return regularly with my family of four to use and reuse that newfound membership, he should still take my deal since the marginal cost of letting in someone again and again was $0, which was why the family membership existed in the first place. He stuck by his guns so I asked for my $20 in change, which he dutifully gave me. As I was leaving, just to be a bit of a business logic jerk, I offered him $30 to give me a family membership, thereby effectively splitting the difference we had had. He refused and said he would only do it for $40. So, we walked away and I waggled my box of popcorn and soda and reminded him that the food was far more valuable than the entry price and that he would likely not get me buying food there again unless I had that membership. Nope. We just left and he was left feeling like he had stuck to his guns. Of course, the zoo was $30 poorer and would never regain that lost revenue.
Shortly after that incident, at one of the many fundraisers I attended while living and working on Staten Island, I ran into the minor-league politician who had been the local City Councilman and who now needed a job. He was given the job as the Director of the Zoo. I explained the scenario to him and he immediately got my point about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. He said he would have accepted the $20 and not even waited for the $30 proposal. He got the joke and went on to say that he knew who the offending ticket taker most likely was. It seems he was a longtime Zoo employee who was mildly disabled and generally unable to do things unless told or make any decisions unless the situation was by the book. His description of the slightly impaired man and the thought that the zoo was kind enough to give such a man a job, all made me feel like a bit of a horse’s ass, so I handed the Zoo Director $20 as a donation. His reaction was to retort that he thought it was $30. I handed him another $10 and slunk away
So, now that we are members of the San Diego Zoo again, and unlike with the Staten Island Zoo (to which I have never returned), we will undoubtedly go again to the zoo with other friends over the next year. Since the membership is also good for the Safari Park, my guess is that we will be going there as well. We will certainly get our money’s worth and the Zoo will do well too since we will undoubtedly buy various tour packages like the one hour private golf cart tour we took yesterday and the safari truck tour we always enjoy at the Safari Park. I will also note as post-script that we probably spent $150 extra on lunch and other refreshments and trinkets. If the normal 20% revenue share for vendors applies to the zoo food services arrangement (which I am sure it does at the least), the Zoo got an extra $30 from me yesterday as well. I guess that’s the similarity between the San Diego Zoo and the Staten Island Zoo, they both know how to get a marginal $30 out of my pocket.
The best job I’ve had was designing and constructing Zoos and Aquariums back in the early 80’s. I worked for a brilliant individual who had revolutionized the Bronx Zoo along the lines initially established by the one in San Diego. At the time we were one of very few consultants that had zoologists, graphic artists, & researchers on staff and we worked with a number of the premier institutions of this nature.
I’ve yet to visit the San Diego Zoo but the memories of Marlon Perkins & Jim from Omaha’s Wild Kingdom are still vivid despite the fact I likely watched much of it in black & white!