Brookfield Zoo


Brookfield Zoo, also known as the Chicago Zoological Park, is a zoo located in the Chicago suburb of Brookfield, Illinois. It houses around 450 species of animals in an area of. It opened on July 1, 1934, and quickly gained international recognition for using moats and ditches instead of cages to separate animals from visitors and from other animals. The zoo was also the first in America to exhibit giant pandas, one of which has been taxidermied and put on display in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. In 1960, Brookfield Zoo built the nation's first fully indoor dolphin exhibit, and in the 1980s, the zoo introduced Tropic World, the first fully indoor rain forest simulation and the then-largest indoor zoo exhibit in the world.
The Brookfield Zoo is owned by the Cook County Forest Preserve District and managed by the Chicago Zoological Society. The society sponsors numerous research and conservation efforts globally.

History

In 1919, Edith Rockefeller McCormick donated land she had received from her father as a wedding gift to the Cook County Forest Preserve District for development as a zoological garden. The district added to that plot and in 1921, the Chicago Zoological Society was established. Serious construction did not begin until 1926, after a zoo tax was approved. Construction slowed during the Great Depression, but regained momentum by late 1931. Construction went on at an increased pace and the zoo opened on July 1, 1934. By the end of September 1934, over one million people had visited the new zoo; the four millionth visitor was just two years later.
The 1950s saw the addition of a veterinary hospital, a children's zoo, and the famous central fountain. The zoo went through a decline in the 1960s until a large bond issue from the Forest Preserve District, close attention to zoo governance, and visitor services saw the zoo recreate itself as one of the nation's best. Tropic World, the then-largest indoor zoo exhibit in the world, was designed by French architect Pierre Venoa and opened in three phases between 1982 and 1984.
During the zoo's early decades, a narrow-gauge railroad existed, which carried guests around the outer perimeter of the park from the North Gate to the old seven seas dolphin habitat on the park's south end. Bison lived on a small prairie on the west end of the park and could only been seen from the train, reminiscent of the Old West. The railroad was dismantled in the mid-1980s, although the pathways once used by the train still exist as roads for service vehicles, as does the North Gate station
In the early 21st century, the zoo has undergone significant capital upgrades, constructing the Regenstein Wolf Woods, the Hamill Family Play Zoo, butterfly tent, sheltered group catering pavilions, and the largest non-restored, hand-carved, wooden carousel in the United States. Great Bear Wilderness, a new, sprawling habitat, opened in 2010. The interiors of several existing buildings were reconfigured into immersion exhibits, based upon ecosystems rather than by clades; these include the Swamp, the Fragile Rain Forest, Fragile Desert the Living Coast, the African Savanna, and Australia House.
The zoo's reptile house, the first building to open in 1934, was closed in December 2004 and is being converted into a conservation center which will not display live animals but will detail the zoo's larger conservation mission. The children's zoo was dismantled in early 2013, and a new family-based series of exhibits known as Wild Encounters opened on the site in 2015, which features red pandas, reindeer, a petting zoo for goats, a walk-through exhibit for wallabies and a free-flight parakeet aviary.
Because of the expense of constructing Great Bear Wilderness and protests from In Defense of Animals over the deaths of the zoo's African elephants, the Pachyderm House was closed for a year in 2011 for modifications and no longer exhibits elephants or river hippopotamuses. The building dates back to 1934 and currently houses only rhinoceroses, tapirs, and pygmy hippos.
The Brookfield Zoo is also known for its majestic fountain named after the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. On some days, the fountain's spouting water can reach up to 60 feet high.
The zoo has been closed only five times in its history: On September 14, 2008, after damage from a weekend rainstorm; on February 2, 2011, after a major blizzard; on April 18–19, 2013, after flooding from a severe rainstorm; January 2019 due to below-freezing temperatures; and from March 19 to July 1, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Animals

;Dolphins:
The Seven Seas at CZS or Brookfield Zoo currently has seven Atlantic bottlenose dolphins.
Allie, Tapeko, Spree, Noelani, Allison, Merlin, and Magic.
;Ziggy
Ziggy was a 6.5 ton male elephant that was kept in an indoor enclosure for nearly thirty years after it attacked its trainer George 'Slim' Lewis in 1941. Ziggy was originally bought by theater empresario Florenz Ziegfeld as a birthday present for his daughter Patricia, but was given to the zoo when he outgrew his pen on the grounds of the Ziegfelds' manor in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. During the 1960s and 1970s, Ziggy attained a cult following in the Chicago area, and the elephant was finally released in 1970 amid much fanfare. Sadly, the elephant fell into his exhibit's moat in March 1975 and died seven months later.
;Olga
Olga was an Atlantic walrus and a favorite to thousands of visitors between 1962 and 1988, entertaining them with her antics. She is remembered by a large bronze statue in the current sea mammal exhibit.
;Binti Jua
Binti Jua is a female western lowland gorilla. On August 16, 1996, a very young boy, visiting the zoo with his parents, fell into the gorilla exhibit of Tropic World. Binti Jua ran over to the crying boy and carefully cradled him and kept other gorillas away from him. When rescue workers arrived she brought the boy to them. The incident received international attention in the media for Binti Jua, who also received special treats and attention from zoo staff for quite some time. It started a debate as to whether Binti Jua's actions were the result of the training she had received from her keepers or an instinctive sense of animal altruism.
;Cookie
Cookie, a Major Mitchell's cockatoo, had been part of the zoo's collection since the opening in 1934. He was given to Brookfield Zoo when he was one year old and was recognized as the oldest known member of his species in captivity as well as the oldest living parrot at the time and one of the longest-lived birds on record. He is now deceased, having been euthanized due to a sharp decline in health on August 27, 2016, at 83 years of age.
Australia House
Hamill Family's Wild Encounters
Feathers and Scales
Reptiles and Birds
Fragile Desert
Fragile Hunters
Fragile Rain Forest
Great Bear Wilderness
Habitat Africa! The Forest
Habitat Africa! The Savannah
Hamill Family Play Zoo
Hoofed Animals
The Living Coast
Pachyderm House
Pinniped Point
Regenstein Wolf Woods
Salt Creek Wilderness
Seven Seas
The Swamp
Tropic World
Dinosaurs Alive!
Dinosaurs Alive!
Dinosaurs Alive!, Series 3
Dinosaurs Alive!, Series 4
Dragons!
Xtreme BUGS!
Former holdings and Returning animals
Returning animals
Former holdings

Since 2007, Brookfield Zoo has offered seasonal exhibits available from late April through September/October.
Chicago cartoonist John T. McCutcheon was the president of the Chicago Zoological Society from 1921 until 1948 and oversaw the zoo's construction, opening and its early years, including helping it through the war years, when the zoo saw a decrease in attendance.
Grace Olive Wiley briefly worked as a reptile curator at the zoo in 1935.
George B. Rabb was the director of Brookfield Zoo from 1976 until 2003, having originally worked as a researcher and an assistant to the director.
Brookfield has had exceptional success in breeding the sitatunga, a type of antelope. It also bred the world’s first captive-born black rhinoceros and gray-headed kingfisher, the first okapi born in the United States, and the first wombat born outside Australia.
Brookfield Zoo is right next to the Riverside Brookfield High School and had a program for freshman with the zoo called SEE Team. The SEE Team and many other clubs, activities, and faculty members at RBHS were cut following a failed 2011 referendum. The SEE Team was resurrected due to its popularity from 2012-2014. It ended before the 2015 school year due to low student enrollment and hasn't been able to pick back up since then.
Partnering with Miami University in Ohio, the Chicago Zoological Society has designed a master's degree program, the Advanced Inquiry Program. Adults in the program can take classes in person with specialists at the zoo and online with professors from the university. Starting in 2010, the AIP roughly costs $2,873 without fees and includes an opportunity to travel.
The zoo has also put in place an educational center for children, specifically ages 1–8, called the Hamill Family Play Zoo. It emphasizes the importance of caring for animals and the environment through wildlife interactions.

Conservation programs

In 2014, revenue of the Brookfield Zoo is made up by $26.6 million from admissions and guest services, $15.2 million from taxes, $11.5 million from membership dues, $11.5 million from contributions, sponsorships, and net assets released, and $1.2 million from investments and other income. Expenses in 2014 included, $15.7 million for admissions and guest services, $15 million for animal collections and conservation programs, $10.7 million for care of buildings and grounds, $7.9 million for management and general, $5.9 million for public education and communications, $3.8 million for marketing and public relations, $3.4 million for fundraising, and $1.4 million for membership. Revenue totaled $66 million and spending totaled $63.8 million during 2014.
In 2010, Governor Quinn granted the Brookfield Zoo $15.6 million to aid repairing and remodeling many parts of the zoo. This included updating the north entrance to the zoo on 31st Street and Golfview Avenue.
The CZS has hosted several fundraising events, Wines in the Wild and Wild Wild Whirl, where they collected various donations ranging in totals from $130,000 to $1.5 million.
A total of 808 volunteers help the zoo with 74,401 community service hours which equates to $1.86 million of work.
Economic movement approaches $150 million, 2,000 jobs, 580 volunteers, and 2.2 million visitors every year.

Animal deaths