Good riddance to SF Zoo director
This weekend came the long overdue news that Manuel Mollinedo has finally resigned as executive director of the San Francisco Zoo. Our sources say he was forced out by the San Francisco Zoological Society Board of Directors after the union representing many zoo workers overwhelmingly approved a no confidence measure against Mollinedo, who has presided over the steady deterioration of employee morale and the conditions under which the animals are kept. But it's been difficult to get anybody talking on the record because of legal warnings about how loose lips could hurt the society's efforts to fight lawsuits related to the fatal tiger mauling in December, which Mollinedo couldn't have handled worse.
The Guardian has been warning for many years that the privatized zoo was bad for the city and worse for the animals. Unless the Zoological Society can use this opportunity to take the zoo in a drastically different direction -- with more focus on animal welfare, greater pay equity between the director and employees, and a commitment to more public accountability -- maybe it's time to start talking about reclaiming the zoo as the public institution that it once was.
digg •
del.icio.us •
sphere •
google
•
Comments (2)
As Marc suggested before, I support dismantling the 'Animal Prisons' altogether:
1.) They are inhumane
2.) That land is perfect for affordable housing
Of course, this would probably never fly with the voters. Maybe SF should take the Chinese water torture tack and slowly take it over just like the way private interests are taking over the Presidio. By the way, now that the city gave the greenlight to Fisher's toy musuem, is it a done deal?
Posted by expatriate | June 9, 2008 05:42 PM
Zoo Must Become A World Class Wildlife Center -
The SF Zoological Society is the real problem and must be sent packing as quickly as possible; and then the facility needs to be transformed from a 'zoo' into a world class regional wildlife facility where visitors can go to see animals in their true natural habitats instead of in ridiculous, cartoonish, and oppressive conditions.
The problem with the zoo is not just one man, but with the SF Zoological Society itself, which hired him and could had fired him a long time ago. The SF Zoological Society is part of an archaic 19th century mindset which sees nature and animals as toys to play with and put on display, like barbies in doll houses.
We need to get rid of the anachronistic SF Zoological Society, and bring in a new management paradigm that will transform the zoo into a legitimate regional wildlife center, which has as its central purpose the education of the community about how the natural world works, and guides us to ways to live in harmony with the biosphere.
This is an educational purpose which is badly needed in this time of global environmental crisis. Times in which, if humans don't learn these lessons soon, we will be done for.
Posted by Eric Brooks | June 10, 2008 11:31 AM