THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250012
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 48 lines
Zoos are popular. The best zoos are routinely mobbed. Although accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and containing more than 350 animals, Virginia Zoological Park in Norfolk is not a top-tier zoo. Even so, the Virginia Zoo attracts 300,000 visitors a year with little advertising.
But attendance surely will soar upon completion of the African continent display, which is the centerpiece of the $15 million first phase of the Virginia Zoo's ambitious master development plan.
Transforming the Virginia Zoo into a premier zoological institution is a joint project of the city of Norfolk and the Virginia Zoological Society (12,000 individual members strong and still growing). On Saturday, Nov. 2, the Virginia Zoo will be the setting for an all-day celebration marking the start of a Virginia Zoological Society drive for $5 million in private-sector funds for expansion.
The zoological society already has gained more than $3 million in pledges for the Virginia Zoo's enhancement. The campaign to attain the $5 million objective merits success - that is to say, support. Already the sole coastal zoo containing exotic wildlife between Washington, D.C., and Columbia, S.C., the Virginia Zoo will be transformed gloriously by the African continent display.
That exhibit will permit compatible African animals to wander freely behind inconspicuous barriers amid vegetation and geological features akin to the environment in their native habitats - elements that reflect concern for the animals' welfare. The exhibit will contain the zoo's elephants now in residence, lions, zebras, giraffes, wart hogs, white rhinos (a species that zoos alone may save from extinction), ostriches, reptiles. Zoo goers will enter the exhibit through an African village.
Implementation of the full master plan will produce a zoo with animals distributed among five ``continent'' settings - Asia, Australia, South America and North America, in addition to Africa. And in the middle of it all will be a Dismal Swamp display spotlighting the natural treasure that is uniquely Southeastern Virginia's.
The 53-acre Virginia Zoo as envisioned by the master plan will be a first-rank institution. Realizing the vision will demand decades of effort by the zoo's champions and millions of dollars from public and private sources, primarily from within Hampton Roads. But the ultimate result will be an irresistible magnet to millions of families from generation to generation. Count on it.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA ZOO EXPANSION
by CNB