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The Saint Louis Zoo moves towards a new century of excellence
Saint Louis is soon to loose a great treasure. I read in Jerry Berger that Charlie Hoessle, director of the Saint Louis Zoo, will retire in 18 months, after 38 years.
When I first came to Saint Louis as a brash young Washington University assistant professor in 1972, Charlie had just begun the job of making over the zoo. I can remember the big cats pacing back and forth behind black bars, each confined to the narrow world of a concrete box not much larger than a closet. The cat house at that time consisted of rows of these jails, and you could not leave a visit there without a lingering feeling of sadness. I can to this day see the cats pacing back and forth, back and forth, in hopeless mad circles. Charlie replaced that prison with Big Cat Country in 197X. There are no bars, and lots of space. Tigers, lions, jaguars, cougars, and leopards live in natural settings, with grass, ponds, and plenty of room. When you visit the big cats now, you feel you are really seeing them -- not free, but with their dignity and mystery preserved.
Over the years, the other animal exhibits got the same thoughtful overhaul. The apes got a spacious new home, the snakes and spiders roomy cubicles. Even the elephants are getting their own Africa-like exclosure, where they can mix with antelope and other members of their natural African community.
It seemed like every year under Hoessle something at the zoo got better. The zoo of 30 years ago scarcely exists now. I cannot think of one building that survives without major change. The zoo we have now is the zoo Charlie built.
While Charlie Hoessle's commitment to the quality of the animal displays has always been his top priority, the zoo grew in many other ways under his care. Charlie first came to the zoo as a member of its then-tiny education department, and I don't think he has ever lost sight of the key role education can and should play in a modern zoo. One of his first moves was to expand the zoo's educational efforts. Soon schoolday busloads of young students on fieldtrips became the norm. For three years I worked for Charlie, on leave from Washington University as the initial director of the Living World, the zoo's education center. Under Charlie's not-always-gentle but always fair direction, we expanded the education staff, built a library teachers could use, provided computer classrooms, and reinforced the zoo's deep involvement in educating the public about the animals who share our world.
I'm sure that if the zoo staff were to be asked, they would say that Charlie's greatest contribution has been his clear sense of mission, his crystal clear realization of what a zoo is for. A zoo entertains, but its not for entertainment. A zoo educates, but its not for education. A zoo is for the animals. The curatorial staff of the zoo is Hoessle's behind-the-scenes army in the fight to preserve what can
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be preserved of the world's increasingly endangered animals. By carefully planned breeding programs in partnership with other zoos, the zoo's curators do everything possible to preserve the genetic variation of each species. It is literally a matter of species survival, and they call their individual breeding programs "species survival programs." Preservation of our animal heritage is the ultimate mission of our zoo. That this sense of mission permeates our zoo is Charlie's greatest contribution.
Excellence is never an accident. The Saint Louis Zoo is widely recognized as one of the ten best in the country. For this I give particular credit to three people: Howard Baer invented the tax district that makes the Saint Louis Zoo the only major zoo in the country that doesn't charge admission. Bob Hyland headed the zoo commission during much of the zoo's growth, and found the money to make it happen. And Charles Hoessle got it all done. Baer and Hyland now live only in memory. Hoessle is still at it, every day trying to make a better zoo.
So how do you replace such a man? Charlie's replacement will be named by the zoo commission, and I'm sure they don't relish the task. I've been thinking a lot about this since I read that Hoessle plans to retire, and find myself drawn to the parallel with the situation at the Missouri Botanical Garden thirty years ago. Its director was stepping down, and the Garden board was faced with the task of replacing him. The Garden was a sleepier place then, set in its ways, but the Garden board had a thirst for excellence and set out to recruit a director who would push the Garden into greatness.
How did the Botanical Garden's board recruit such a director? They appointed an outside committee of experts to conduct a search, asking only two things: pick someone young, and pick a world-class scientist. Within a year the search committee had identified a young 35 year old Stanford botanist, Peter Raven. I was Peter's friend at Stanford then, and remember vividly why he took the job -- because of a clear commitment to excellence by the Garden board.
The zoo commission should make just such a commitment. Charlie Hoessle has built Saint Louis a zoo we can be proud of, a zoo poised to assume greatness. Hoessle, the zoo, and the citizens of Saint Louis deserve a clear commitment to excellence in the search for a new zoo director that will take place over the next 18 months. If the new director's contribution matches Charlie Hoessle's, we will be fortunate indeed.
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