While acknowledging the roots of his institution in the late 19th century, Zoo Atlanta President and CEO Raymond King spoke Tuesday of new ventures that place the zoo firmly in the cyber age.
Addressing supporters and volunteers at the annual CEO’s Breakfast, King described a variety of innovative ways that the zoo will interact with its customers, including a newfangled augmented reality application and an old-fashioned package deal with Georgia State University football tickets.
Of the new zoo apps, which also include mobile ticketing, King said, “I could not have imagined that our zoo could be doing things like this 10 years ago; it was like watching ‘The Jetsons’ for me.”
One of those applications, called ZooKazam, allows zoo visitors to point their smartphones at a zoo logo, and see zoo animals frolicking in their viewfinders, along with information about the species in view.
The breakfast took place in the Ford Conservation Conference Room, where a model of the zoo’s new reptile and amphibian house stood in one corner, giving visitors their first look at an attraction that will open in early 2015.
Funds for the $18 million structure were raised from private donors, corporations and foundations, as part of a $23 million capital campaign, the largest in the zoo’s history. King reported that the campaign is now complete and that construction is well underway.
King, a former banker who shifted careers to join the zoo in 2010, said the zoo has been in the black for that time period, and is currently debt-free. “We’ve shown we can do it through wet times and snow times and hot times.”
Other changes at the zoo have taken place in its connection to the Dewar Wildlife Trust in North Georgia, where two of Zoo Atlanta’s gorillas have been living since 2012.
King announced recently that the zoo will soon discontinue its ongoing relationship with the private refuge, and will bring the two gorillas, Kidogo (also called Willie B. Jr.) and Jasiri, back to Atlanta.
In a conversation a few days ago, King said the decision was a matter of money. “Every penny we spent up there was a penny we didn’t spend down here,” he said. He stressed that no other event propelled the decision. “Nothing went wrong. It’s still a phenomenal facility with a lot of potential for somebody.”
The Fannin County refuge was created in 2003 by software entrepreneur Steuart Dewar as a haven for aging gorillas from zoos around the country who would otherwise be sentenced to off-exhibit solitary confinement.
For the Atlanta zoo, the Wildlife Trust was a way to spread around their growing male gorilla population, and avoid the sort of intergenerational conflicts that come between adult males and young males.
The 100-acre spread near Morganton, with 2.5 acres of green space devoted to the gorillas, was also a luxury vacation from the smaller confines of the zoo. “It’s the gorilla Hilton up here,” said Charles Horton last year. Horton was one of two part-time curators that the zoo funded to take care of the animals.
“We’re disappointed,” said JoBeth Dewar, director of marketing at the refuge. “We’re certainly going to miss our guys, and they’re going to miss their wide-open spaces.”
The two gorillas are the only two animals currently in care at the Dewar compound, not including a pair of baby raccoons that JoBeth Dewar recently adopted. But she said the refuge is considering other options, and even other species, including chimpanzees.
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