Kathleen Drevik at The San Diego Zoo

Hello, I’m Kathleen Drevik and today I am writing about my travels to the San Diego Zoo. First, a bit of history-The San Diego Zoo was formed after the nineteen fifteen worlds fair where an exhibit of animals from overseas was abandoned by one of the fair’s exhibitors. Founded by HaroldWegeforth, the zoo selected a site on a piece of land in Balboa Park. In an unusual arrangement the city owns the animals and the zoo takes care of the care and feeding of them animals. The animal count grew quickly in those first few years, bolstered by an acquisition of animals from the Wonderland Amusement Park, a park that had gone out of business.

In nineteen twenty-three the zoo enlisted the aid of Frank Buck, a well-known animal researcher, to become the director of the zoo in 1923. Mr. Buck was signed to a three-year contract but soon it was apparent that he and Wegeforth began to butt heads since both were stubborn and strong willed. Despite the three-year contract, Mr. Buck left the zoo after only three months to pursue his passion of animal collecting.

A string of short-lived chief executives followed, but in 1925 Mr. Wegeforth hired Belle Benchley, the former bookkeeper to be the executive secretary of the zoo, a de-facto position of Zoo director. A few years after her promotion Benchley was given the title and formally announced as zoo director, becoming the first female zoo director in the world. She held that distinction until a few years before her retirement in 1953.

In 1975 the zoo founded The Center ForReproduction of Endangered Species. Founded by Kurt Benirschke who as the inaugural director, refined the mission and later renamed it the Institute for Conservation Research.

In my next post, I’m going to go into detail about the various animals and exhibits that can be found at The San Diego Zoo.  I’ll have pictures, too! Stay tuned!

~Kathleen Drevik