The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is a nonprofit organization headquartered in San Diego, California, that operates the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Founded in 1916 as the Zoological Society of San Diego under the leadership of Harry M. Wegeforth, the organization claims the largest zoological society membership in the world, with more than 250,000 member households and 130,000 child memberships, representing more than half a million people. The San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park feature a combined 15,000 animals of 750 species, not all of which are displayed publicly.
In its first few decades, the Zoological Society of San Diego worked to establish and build up the San Diego Zoo. Members of the organization formed groups that later became the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and American Association of Zoo Keepers (AAZK). In the early 1970s the society established the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species (CRES). The organization changed its name to San Diego Zoo Global in 2010 as part of a rebranding that also saw the Wild Animal Park renamed to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The name of the organization was changed again in March 2021, to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
The organization's mission is to save species worldwide by uniting their expertise in animal care and conservation science with their dedication to inspiring passion for nature. It is classified as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and is funded by a combination of grants, donations, membership revenues, revenues from the Zoo and Safari Park, and property taxes collected by the City of San Diego. Its lands, facilities, and animals are legally owned by the city, but are exclusively managed and maintained by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. The organization and its institutions are accredited by the AZA and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and have received many awards for their habitats, breeding programs, and wildlife conservation efforts.
History Formation
Dr. Harry M. Wegeforth, a San Diego physician, founded the Zoological Society of San Diego in 1916 with the intention of starting a zoo in the city's Balboa Park area using abandoned exotic animal exhibitions from the Isthmus portion of the 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition. Wegeforth had served on the board of directors for the Exposition in 1916, and he and his brother Paul, also a physician and surgeon, had served as surgeons for the event. By his own account, Harry Wegeforth was inspired to start a zoo after hearing the roar of a lion from one of the Exposition's exhibits:
On September 16, 1916, as I was returning to my office after performing an operation at the St. Joseph Hospital, I drove down Sixth Avenue and heard the roaring of the lions in the cages at the Exposition then being held in Balboa Park. I turned to my brother, Paul, who was riding with me, and half jokingly, half wishfully, said "Wouldn't it be splendid if San Diego had a zoo! You know...I think I'll start one." Taking me at my word, he replied that he would be glad to help me but added dubiously that he did not see how such a project could be put over on the heels of an Exposition not very successful in its second year. I had long nurtured the thought of a San Diego Zoo and now—suddenly—I decided to try to establish one.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 71.
Later that month, in an article in the San Diego Union, the brothers announced a call for interested parties to join them in forming a society to develop and support a zoological garden. They specifically called for local physician Fred Baker, who had co-founded the Marine Biological Institution (which later became the Scripps Institution of Oceanography), and Joseph Cheesman Thompson, a Navy neurosurgeon with an interest in entomology and herpetology:
Baker and Thompson responded, and helped convince naturalist Frank Stephens, a member of the board of directors of the Natural History Society, to join as well. The five men held the first organizational meeting of the Zoological Society of San Diego on October 2, 1916, with Harry Wegeforth serving as the founding president, Thompson as vice-president, Baker as treasurer, and Paul Wegeforth as secretary. Using the by-laws and constitution of the New York Zoological Society as a model, Harry Wegeforth, Thompson, and Stephens drew up the Articles of Incorporation and by-laws for the Zoological Society of San Diego, which were submitted to Mayor Edwin M. Capps, Park Commission President George Marston, and the state and executed on December 11, 1916.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 72. The group had already received one of its first animals that November: "Caesar", a female Kodiak bear that had been kept as a mascot and pet by the crew of the USS Nanshan; having grown too large and unruly to remain aboard the ship, the bear was lent to the fledgling zoo by Captain W. D. Prideaux. By the end of the year the Zoological Society had grown to 120 members, and had raised $1,000 in four days by selling lifetime memberships at $200 apiece.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 77.
Establishing the San Diego Zoo
The Zoological Society's initial efforts focused on the creation of the San Diego Zoo. In January 1917 the Balboa Park Board agreed to furnish quarters in the park to establish a zoo, and to assist the society with maintenance. The Zoo began as a long row of animal homes along Park Boulevard ("little more than Menagerie Row", according to WegeforthWegeforth and Morgan, p. 73.) for animals that had been rented for the Panama–California Exposition from a menagerie at the Wonderland Amusement Park in nearby Ocean Beach; Wonderland had gone out of business during the Exposition, and the animals were held jointly by the society, the Park Department, and the Mission Bay Corporation.Wegeforth and Morgan, pp. 75–76. Additional animals left over from the Exposition and scattered throughout Balboa Park included buffalo, deer, a pair of bears, ducks, and herds of Panama deer and elk; supervision of most of these animals was turned over to the new Zoo by the Park Department. Other early animals acquired by or donated to the Zoo included a badger, two lynxes, a gray fox, a coyote, two golden eagles, two rails, a whip snake, and a white goose. Stephens served as the active director of the Zoo during this time. The Zoological Society's first official seal was created, featuring an image of a grizzly bear (the animal depicted on the Flag of California).
The society faced financial challenges in maintaining the growing number of animals in their care. W. H. Porterfield of the San Diego Sun had long been interested in establishing a zoo in Balboa Park, and offered to use his newspaper to publicize the Zoo and campaign for funds. At his suggestion, the society's board of directors contacted school authorities, asking them to stimulate children to approach their parents about supporting the Zoo. Porterfield ran a contest in the Sun in conjunction with an upcoming circus, in which the newspaper gave prizes to the best children's stories about animals. He also arranged for the circus to charge children a $0.50 admission fee which would include a membership to the Junior Zoological Society; $0.12 of each admission would go to the circus, and the remaining $0.38 to the Zoological Society. Within two months the society had raised enough money to purchase the Wonderland animals from the Mission Bay Corporation. Carl H. Heilbron and David Charles Collier were also instrumental in helping the Zoo acquire the Wonderland animals.
Joseph Thompson planned much of the Zoo's education program, which included guidebooks, textbooks, and free lectures; the first such lecture was about bears, in response to Caesar's arrival. However, in April 1917 he was called away on new orders from the Navy following American entry into World War I, and resigned from the society's board of directors; he was replaced by Joseph Sefton, Jr.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 78. Paul Wegeforth resigned in mid-1917 to accept a commission in the United States Army, and was replaced by Thomas N. Faulconer. By October 1917 the society had again run out of funds, and Wegeforth organized a track and field meet between the Navy and Marine Corps, generating enough revenue from ticket sales to maintain the society through the end of the year. Another source of income was the sale of lion cubs, born to the Zoo's lionesses, to other zoos; 30 cubs were sold during the Zoo's first four years, at prices ranging from $150 to $1,500.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 125. By this time the Zoological Society was selling annual memberships at $5 apiece.
The Zoological Society struggled to find a permanent location for the Zoo within Balboa Park, negotiating with the Park Commission and promising "to furnish the best collection of animals and reptiles on the Pacific Coast" as well as to provide professional staff, scientific and descriptive labels for the animals, and free public lectures about the collection and natural history. Following a suggestion made by the city attorney, a resolution was adopted in 1918: In return for a building in Balboa Park and an as-yet-undesignated plot of ground set aside for the Zoo and for research work, the society would sell ownership of all its wildlife, equipment, and property to the Board of Park Commissioners of the City of San Diego; thus the Zoo and all its future assets would belong to the city, but would be managed and maintained by the Zoological Society, who would have jurisdiction over the permanent zoo site. "Then the Zoological Society would not legally own either the land or the animals but would be the administrative body for the Zoo," wrote Wegeforth, "retaining the right to sell or trade whatever surplus animals we deemed unnecessary for exhibition."Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 80. The City Council agreed, and pledged additional funds to aid the Zoo's maintenance. In July 1918 Harry Wegeforth resigned from the board of directors to accept a commission with the Army Medical Corps, and Sefton was appointed president for almost five months before Wegeforth resumed the position, which he would retain until his death in 1941.Wegeforth and Morgan, p. 86. Upon his return Wegeforth began the construction of reptile cages and started trading with and selling animals to other zoos, exchanging two brown bear cubs for a polar bear.
By late 1919 a permanent location for the Zoo had still not been secured, but sturdier housing was needed for the bears.Wegeforth and Morgan, pp. 72–75. The society set about building its first open-air, cageless exhibit along what is now Zoo Drive: a bear pit that housed Caesar, the polar bear, and a black bear, with the species separated by wire fencing. The planned concrete floor was omitted due to insufficient funds, and Caesar tunneled under the wall the first night, damaging the enclosure. Ellen Browning Scripps made the first monetary donation to the society, providing funds to improve the exhibit. The resulting design, a grotto with the floor built up to place the animals at eye level with visitors, separated from them by a moat and a low wall, became a prototype for many of the Zoo's early exhibits. The Zoological Society's first organized membership campaign was carried out during the final months of 1920.