Zoo to attract a million visitors this year
24 August 2008 By Michelle DevaneThe booming Dublin attraction plans new features, with its gorillas set to have their own rainforest.
Leo Oosterweghel still remembers the day the ‘‘little guy in a little white coat and a little white hat’’ came to visit Dublin Zoo.
After looking around the zoo’s restaurant, he delivered the bad news. ‘‘Our restaurant was condemned," said Oosterweghel, director of Dublin Zoo. ‘‘He said there was a leaking roof, and mice, and he closed it down, so we were without a restaurant."
There was only one solution, according to Oosterweghel, a native of the Netherlands - ‘‘we had to build a new one’’. That approach has driven a major turnaround in the zoo’s fortunes over the past decade, with the zoo doubling in size, a surge in visitor numbers and a boom in the animal population.
Last week, staff were waiting in anticipation for the arrival of a baby snow leopard - an endangered species - to add to this year’s tally of a baby giraffe, an elephant calf, a southern white rhino calf and a Californian sealion pup. The zoo hopes to attract a million visitors this year, up from 905,000 last year, and there are further expansion plans.
It was all very different eight years ago, according to Oosterweghel. ‘‘The press were very negative about the zoo. They wanted to close it down. There were conditions that were unacceptable, and we managed to turn it around," he said.
Next month, work will start on a €4 million development, called Project African Savannah, which will be located in the African Plains area of the zoo gardens.
The zoo will be further expanded next year, when a €4million Gorilla Rainforest will be built to provide a better home for the gorillas.
Both projects are being funded by the Office of Public Works and by the zoo’s trading surplus. ‘‘Another project we have starting soon is a veterinary facility," said Oosterweghel.
‘‘Our current one is very poor. But I always have to balance the off-limits to the public, non-sexy stuff, against the high-profile marketable animal welfare-related projects."
The zoo was founded in 1830 with animals supplied by London Zoo. During an open day in 1838 to mark the coronation of Queen Victoria, the zoo attracted 20,000 visitors - an attendance record that still stands today. ‘‘Dublin was modelled after Regent’s Park, because in the 1830s Dublin was a pretty important city in the empire. Originally named the Royal Zoological Society, it was changed when the zoo received government funding," said Oosterweghel.
Almost 180 years on, the zoo has 632 animals from 120 species, 48 of which are mammals. It employs 101 people, about 70 of whom are fulltime employees. This includes 35 keepers, who form the core animal care team, and the horticultural staff.
‘‘Staff numbers have grown, but we are still a very small number, because we really try and run on a profit," said Oosterweghel. ‘‘We have to - and every euro we make goes back into the zoo because we are a not-for-profit organisation."
The zoo also receives government funding, which has totalled about €50 million in the last 15 years. ‘‘We’ve being doing so many things with the funding - there was an entrance that needed to be fixed and stronger fences to be put in," said Oosterweghel. ‘‘At first, the funding was spent on basic changes, but now we can do the imaginative things."
In 2000, the zoo attracted about 450,000 visitors a year, but the improvements have doubled that. Up to last month, the poor weather had not affected visitor numbers, and the zoo is on target to hit the one million visitor mark for the first time.
‘‘For a country with a population of about four million, it is remarkable that we have such high visitor numbers," said Oosterweghel. ‘‘To keep this up, we have to give people a reason to come back."
When the zoo opened, it covered 30 acres, but today it occupies almost 100 acres. In 2000, President McAleese donated 30 acres of Aras an Uachtaráin demesne in the Phoenix Park to the zoo. It facilitated the major expansion called the African Plains, which is home to giraffes, zebras, white rhinos, ostriches and lions. This was among the reforms set in train by the zoo’s previous director Peter Wilson.
A new elephant habitat, the Kaziranga Forest Trail, opened last year with pools and dense vegetation. That area spreads over 8,000 square metres and houses four female Asian elephants and a baby male elephant, which was born last February.
It took a year to build, at a cost of €8.8 million. The forest trail has been designed as a ‘‘journey of discovery’’ for visitors, especially children, as they find their way through tunnels of foliage and winding paths into the elephant habitat.
‘‘The Kaziranga was our biggest project," said Oosterweghel. ‘‘It’s splendid. These wonderful, highly-intelligent animals are housed in a great environment. From a business point, it has also been successful because people adore the elephants and are voting with their feet."
In 1838, the animals were seen as exhibits, but the focus shifted long ago to conservation and building a sustainable future for wildlife as their natural habitats shrink, according to the zoo’s director.
In the past, there was a trade in animals between zoos, but now zoos work together towards conservation. Dublin Zoo is an active participant in a breeding programme with 200 other European zoos.
‘‘About 25 years ago, there was all this business of animal trade, paying for animals like elephants. We all said ‘This is nonsense, let’s cut this out’, so they are now traded for free. All the zoos in Europe work together now," said Oosterweghel.
‘‘The population of each animal is monitored and there are conservation plans. For example with elephants, there are about 250 in zoos, so there is a 100-year plan for them. The book keeper decides what bull should visit what herd, the recipient pays for the transport but that’s it.
‘‘Our four elephants came from Rotterdam but no money changed hands."
Oosterweghel is looking forward to continuing to improve the grounds and the animals care. ‘‘Our gorillas are housed very poorly at the moment and are very cramped. They need privacy, so we’re building a rainforest in the Africa Plains for them which is modelled on a similar rainforest in Melbourne Zoo. To do that, we have to move rhinos and redevelop a big flat area," said Oosterweghel.
For Oosterweghel, caring for animals is just like caring for people. ‘‘Our costs are high, because it’s a bit like a hospital," he said. ‘‘You can’t say ‘Sorry, animals, sort it out yourselves’. It’s a 24/7 operation. We only close on Christmas Day. That’s it.
‘‘It’s a living collection: there’s a pregnant snow leopard, a pregnant gorilla, and a young giraffe, rhino and two young elephants.
‘‘I can watch the animals’ houses on my laptop, and I work on site. I’m always on call - the mobile is never switched off."