Zoo Atlanta's newly negotiated panda loan with the Chinese government will cost it nearly half of what it has paid over the past decade, and frees the Atlanta attraction to finally pursue major improvements for the care and display of other animals.
In details revealed exclusively to the AJC on Thursday, Zoo Atlanta president and CEO Dennis Kelly said the deal calls for the zoo to pay China $570,000 yearly during the next five years, compared to the $1.1 million that it paid annually over the last decade.
Other cuts include trimming required annual research allocations from $100,000 to $30,000. A required $50,000-per-year panda life insurance policy will now be self-insured by Zoo Atlanta at a much lower, though still to be determined, rate. Finally, a "cub tax", in which the zoo paid the Chinese one-time fees of $310,000 upon the birth of Mei Lan and Xi Lan, will no longer be charged if parents Lun Lun and Yang Yang produce additional offspring.
The deal is an agreement in principal, awaiting only final Chinese approval. Completion "could be next week, could be next month," Kelly said. "But the pandas are here, our partners in China signed the agreement, money is flowing and good work is happening. It just takes time."
Kelly, it was announced last week, will be leaving Zoo Atlanta to run the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington in mid-February, right around the time that 3-year-old Mei Lan will be sent to China for breeding purposes.
He acknowledged that when he took over the Grant Park menagerie in 2003, he questioned the steep annual expense of the pandas and whether Zoo Atlanta could afford to honor the long contract negotiated by his predecessor Terry Maple. The question was pertinent because the facility was then $19.5 million in the red, even though the pandas had boosted membership and attendance. The CEO says he studied the zoo's original contract for six months and met several times with his board's strategic planning committee.
"We felt like it was the right thing for Zoo Atlanta to continue along with the program, that while it was expensive, conservation is expensive," he said.
During his six-year tenure, Kelly has raised $40 million in public and private funds, and the zoo, which now operates with a $20 million annual budget, is debt-free today. Pulling that off, however, has required the facility to proceed cautiously with big-ticket improvements. Its most expensive project over the last decade, in fact, was the $8 million panda habitat. Other enhancements, such as the rebuilt Orkin Children's Zoo and a carnivores complex that has just broken ground, have cost $2 million and under.
Now that the "panda obligation is under control," as Kelly terms it, he says the zoo is in the early stages of raising funds for a reptile-amphibian facility to replace the one designed in 1959 and an animal hospital that are roughly estimated at $18 million and $8 million, respectively.
Meanwhile, the zoo continues its public Give So They Stay panda campaign for $500,000, to go along with $2 million it previously raised privately or identified through budget cuts.
The zoo has raised nearly $55,000 in the last two weeks, to bring the drive's total $314,631. The recent boost has come from a special membership offer -- $99 for two adults and up to four children (who do not have to live in the same household).
Though Give So They Stay is certain to fall short, the pandas are staying and the zoo is working on other fund-raisers for 2010. Next up: a specialty panda license plate that is expected to be approved in the next legislative session and made available in June or July.
