A $500 million plan for the future: Brookfield Zoo Chicago to revamp campus, introduce new animals

A hippo goes for a swim, a crocodile lounges on a beach, elephants wade into a pool and a parade of rhinos makes its way down a winding trail.

Brookfield Zoo Chicago aims to create that Gateway to Africa, one of the many highlights of a bold, $500 million plan to redesign almost half the campus and expand its role in conservation science and research.

When zoo leaders say they wanted to “dream big” in mapping out the Next Century Plan, it’s an understatement. Their goal is to put $400 million into improvements and another $100 million toward the zoo’s endowment and maintenance. At its core, the plan reimagines the zoo as you know it.

“We wanted it to make Brookfield Zoo Chicago into the best zoo in America and to bring Chicago along with us on that journey,” president and CEO Dr. Michael Adkesson said.

The zoo first opened its gates 90 years ago. The grounds resembled a botanical garden with a formal promenade connecting the north and south entrances.

Looking to the 100th anniversary and beyond, zoo officials intend to keep that historical nucleus intact and repurpose familiar landmarks. The bear grotto rock work, for instance, could provide a backdrop for red pandas, sloth bears, sun bears and wolverines.

In a shift away from a zoological garden park and traditional zoo design, the plan calls for a new thematic layout based on 14 eco-regions of the world. Those zones will represent a range of landscapes from the rugged terrain of the Himalayas to the scrublands of southwestern Australia. Zoo officials see “Gateway to Africa” as a 35-acre window into the continent’s forests and savannas.

“The opportunity to do something truly grand in that area of the zoo was really appealing,” Adkesson said. “It’s a huge amount of space to work with. We’re so fortunate to have this land that we haven’t developed, that we have the opportunity now to reenvision how it looks.”

‘A huge role’

The 15-year plan is expected to unfold in four phases with more improvements projected over 30 years. The zoo so far has raised almost $200 million of its capital goal through public and private funding.

The evolution already is taking shape with Tropical Forests, an ongoing, $66 million project to build an outdoor complex for great apes and monkeys, along with a Gorilla Conservation Center.

Outlined in the next stage of the plan is the Gateway to Africa project. Brookfield visitors could see lions or rhinos on a half-mile-long corridor, rotating among more natural zoo habitats across the northwest section of the campus. The Savanna Passage also will give zoo residents a change of scenery.

The idea: “How can we make this an enriching habitat for the animals but also an exciting experience for the guests? And I think this is such a neat way to do it where the animals will move through different spaces, so it’s great for their activity,” Adkesson said.

The zoo once again is slated to make a home for Nile hippos and there’s also the possibility of adding cheetahs. Most notably, the zoo wants to bring back elephants for the first time since 2010.

Some zoos in recent years have closed elephant exhibits amid a debate about whether they can provide them with appropriate space. Adkesson said the zoo can play “a huge role in shaping the public’s interest in saving elephants.”

“Both Asian and African elephants are seeing massive population declines,” he said, “which is a frightening thing to think about that these are some of the most majestic animals on the planet and they’re literally vanishing right before our eyes and a lot of their natural habitats.”

Gateway to Africa, as currently conceived, will include several areas totaling 12.5 acres for elephants – a footprint more than 20 times larger than the zoo’s former elephant space. A mix of species – elephants and rhinos or elephants and giraffes – could mingle in the same space, replicating their lives in the wild. Elephants also would be able to move between different areas via the new trail system.

“We know that while space is important, it’s not the only element of care of elephants that makes a good state of welfare for them,” said Adkesson, who served as the zoo’s chief vet before becoming CEO. “We have some of the best animal care staff in the world, some of the best veterinary staff in the world and we’re able to provide elephants with a wonderful life here at the zoo.”

Making a splash

California sea lions will swim and bark and play in the Pacific Coasts of the Americas zone, which will be front and center near the north gate. Humboldt penguins and free-flying seabirds also will share a new zoo habitat inspired by the coastal ecosystems of Peru’s Punta San Juan Marine Protected Area.

It’s a special part of the world to Adkesson, who with other zoo veterinarians have studied the region’s marine wildlife for years. He made a short trip in May to help deploy satellite tags on South American sea lions so experts can precisely identify where they’re foraging.

Populations have been hit by a one-two punch: a major El Niño event that depleted their fish supply and an outbreak of bird flu that jumped into sea lions.

“We were doing sea lion anesthesia on a beach where there’s normally 5,000 to 10,000 sea lions … and there was about 100 to 200 animals there total and so it was tough. It was tough to see,” Adkesson said.

He views the Pacific Coasts of the Americas as an opportunity to underline conservation efforts from multiple angles – how consumers can avoid buying from overdepleted fish stocks.

“There’s the climate element of it and being able to talk about climate change and what that does to frequency of El Niño events,” Adkesson said. “You can talk about pollution into marine coastal waterways.”

Moving sea lions to the north gate will give the zoo room for a third-phase project: an indoor-outdoor dolphin lagoon simulating their shallow home range off Florida’s Sarasota Bay. The zoo leads the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population.

Later this year, the zoo will announce a 10-year strategy to support global conservation programs.

“We also live in a world where most people are never going to make it to Africa to see an elephant and a giraffe in an open savanna. They’re never going to scuba dive underwater and see a dolphin and a sea lion swimming around,” Adkesson said. “We have that obligation, as well, to provide those types of experiences to people here in Chicago so that they understand the importance and the value and the worth of this wildlife that we’re working so hard to save.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20240716/news/a-500-million-plan-for-the-future-brookfield-zoo-chicago-to-revamp-campus-introduce-new-animals/