THE CITY World Class, At Last?

IT’s a warm spring day at the Dallas Zoo and director Rich Buickerood is indulging in what he calls one of his “favorite perks of the job”-talking to the animals.

While he doesn’t communicate with furry friends the way Dr. Doolittle did, Buickerood does a credible job of demonstrating his affection for his charges. “Hi, Indy!” he calls out cheerfully to a juvenile black rhino. As he passes by the lions’ enclosure, Buickerood greets Vincent, a magnificent male African lion who, in the fashion of most felines, is taking a midday catnap. “Each morning, he and his wife have a cup of coffee and read the paper,” Buickerood says whimsically. “Then they argue over who does the dishes. You can hear their roars reverberate throughout the entire zoo.”

Behind the walls of his office, Buickerood changes from spirited animal-lover to concerned but optimistic zoo director. Although enthusiastic when describing the zoo’s future, Buickerood turns serious as a cobra bite when discussing the past. “My first two years here were sheer hell,” he admits. “I was well into my third year before I could go home to my wife and tell her I was enjoying my job.”

No wonder. The day before he started his job in early 1992, the city welcomed him to Dallas with a 7 percent cut in the zoo’s budget. The budget cut followed on the heels of the disappointing opening of the Wilds of Africa, an exhibit built to replicate the six major geographic areas of the continent. Despite heavy publicity surrounding the opening, the zoo received more complaints than compliments; People couldn’t see many animals from the park’s monorail due to thick foliage-and the hoofed stock and birds that were visible just weren’t that exciting. It was where the wild things weren’t.

Meanwhile, there was trouble from the west as the Fort Worth Zoo began to market aggressively to Dallas residents by placing bill-boards along Dallas freeways, including one on Interstate 35E right outside the Dallas Zoo. Although the zoos work together on conservation projects, the billboard grated on Buickerood and his crew. “As a proud Dallas boy, there is nothing that drives me more insane than having to drive by that sign every morning,” says Michael Meadows, executive director of the Dallas Zoological Society. According to Dallas Zoo marketing director Pam Deutsch, the zoo relies on pro-bono help for advertising, meaning few funds have been available for a PR counterattack with billboards, TV, or radio.

Overshadowing it all was the negative image of the zoo. Justly or unjustly, many Dallasities and suburb-dwellers believe that the Oak Cliff neighborhood where the zoo is based is unsafe. Others complain that the zoo is hard to find. Partly as a result of those perceptions, attendance has dropped. In 1990, when the Wilds of Africa opened, 635,046 people visited the zoo. During 1994, attendance plunged to 408,437, compared to the Oklahoma City Zoo’s 631,161 and Fort Worth’s 1,064,711.

As the decade hits its halfway point, however, the Dallas Zoo is attempting to shake free of the ashes of low attendance, budget cuts, hiring freezes, and image difficulties to rise into the ranks of world-class zoos, much like the phoenix in its fabled resurrection.

One ray of hope came from the May 1995 city election. The passage of Proposition 4, part of the city bond package, brought $6.7 million into the zoo’s coffers. As perhaps an added bonus, that same election brought in Ron Kirk as mayor-the same Ron Kirk who served as president of the Dallas Zoological Society from 1992 to 1994- Needless to say, Kirk is bullish on the zoo.

“Having this entity in the community with the potential of bringing a million visitors into the heart of Oak Cliff is a great boon for the economy,” says the mayor. “If we have a zoo that brings people here, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to know that businesses will follow.”

To bring people to the zoo, a master plan was developed in 1993. The goals of the plan include, among other things, the completion of the Wilds of Africa and a regenerated Zoo North, the older part of the zoo. Plans are in the works for a new chimpanzee- exhibit and children’s zoo. The too will also build a new entrance off I-35, just off the Marsalis exit. According to zoo officials, that entrance, combined with the DART rail line that is under construction, should counter the image problems of a hard-to-find zoo in a bad neighborhood.

To help fund this master plan, the Dallas Zoological Society-which serves as, among other things, the zoo’s fund-raising arm-is working on a major capital campaign to raise private dollars. Like its counterparts, the Dallas Zoo faces dwindling city funds, although the zoo’s yearly allotment of $6.7 million tops the Fort Worth Zoo’s $2.4 million and that of the Oklahoma City Zoo, which receives sates tax revenues in lieu of city subsidies. The overall operating budgets of the Fort Worth and Oklahoma Zoos, however, are $10 million and $16 million respectively, compared to Dallas’ $8.5 million. They have got more to spend for one reason: privatisation.

“Most city-run zoos have to look at privatization as a way to survive,” says Gregg Hudson, park director of the Fort Worth Zoological Park. “Unfortunately, parks and zoos are looked upon as expendable items in a city’s budget.”

But privatization only works if a zoo has the support of area business. “To a certain extent, the zoo has been neglected by the city of Dallas and the business community,” says former councilman Domingo Garcia, who, until the May election, represented District 1 where the zoo is based. “Millions of dollars from foundations and wealthy individuals flow to cultural institutions in Dallas. But none seem to have gone to the zoo.”

Garcia believes, as do others, that businesses are starting to take a look at the zoo as an economic asset. While zoogoers may never see a Trammell Crow Aviary or a Dallas Bar Association Reptile House, an Exxon Endangered Tiger Exhibit is now in the works. Exxon, a zoo corporate sponsor, first jumped into the privatization ring in 1992 by funding the zoo’s master plan.

“We’re wanting to demonstrate to the city council and the public that yes, the private sector is willing to step up and help,” says Ed Robinson, vice president and treasurer of the Exxon Corporation, “We’re also interested in demonstrating to members of the private sector that they should follow suit and do the same thing.”

Privatization also works best if there is a strong link between zoological society and zoo staff, which hasn’t always been the case at the Dallas Zoo. Relations between the groups these days, however, are downright harmonious, which is one reason the zoo makes the strides it makes on such a limited budget. Teamwork between Buickerood and Meadows, for example, helped the zoo receive an increase of Proposition 4 funds. The Park and Recreation Board, which oversees zoo operations, originally sought $10.4 million for the zoo’s part of last May’s bond package. The City of Dallas had different ideas, coming back with $4-5 million. “As a good soldier, 1 had to say to that ’yes, sirs. Thank you very much, sirs. We’re very appreciative,’ “Buickerood, a former Air Force colonel, says. “But Michael could go charging downtown for the kill and say ’Hey, wait a minute! We want our money!’”

Despite a low operating budget, zoo officials and staff have made improvements to the grounds through the use of “smoke and mirrors,” as Buickerood describes it. In Zoo North, fences between smaller exhibits-some of which date back to the New Deal-have been knocked down to create larger enclosures. A cheetah exhibit has been added to Zoo North, and the Tom Thumb PetPal area is new in the Children’s Zoo. In the Wilds of Africa, foliage has been trimmed and fence lines moved so monorail riders can better see animals. The addition of remote video cameras and an overlook platform at the Jake L. Hamon gorilla sanctuary means visitors see at least one of the great apes, Outside the zoo, brighter lights and foliage have cheered up Clarendon Avenue and helped visitors feel safer.

“The zoo is doing exciting things that are starting to generate more attendance,” says Domingo Garcia. “The staff is working hard to make it more user-friendly and a destination location- Public support, he adds, is also evident in the passage of Proposition 4.

New money, new ideas, new business backing- Is all that enough? From October 1994 (the start of the zoo’s fiscal year) through May 1995, attendance was 257,104, marginally higher than the 255,491 who touted the zoo during the same period the year before. Only the next several years will tell if more dollars and more improvements will mean more people coming to the zoo.

In the meantime, Buickerood remains optimistic. “We want to be sitting bete in the year 2015 and look back on this period and say this was when we began to build our long-range strategic plan,” he says. “Right now, we’ve got to stabilise the trunk of the tree so we can do wonderful things with the fruit that grows on the branches.”

And if all goes as planned for the zoo, there could be a phoenix nesting in the branches of that tree in the next century.