By 1956, the city of Los Angeles had outgrown the small Griffith Park Zoo. Citizens approved a $6.6 million bond measure to help build a new one, and a 113-acre site in Griffith Park was chosen as the new location. A private non-profit organization was created in 1964 to support the new facility. The zoo then began to raise money and acquire animals.
When the Los Angeles Zoo opened in 1966, it was the fourth zoo to serve the city. The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA) had already graduated a class of trained volunteer docents and had produced several issues of a quarterly magazine called Zoo View. Some 80,000 Angelenos turned out for the Los Angeles Zoo’s November opening (also in attendance was an alligator named Methuselah, who still resides at the zoo today).
In 1967, the zoo acquired 3 endangered Arabian Oryxes for $75,000. The Los Angeles Zoo cooperated with the only other US zoo that is home to Oryxes, the Phoenix Zoo, to successfully breed the gazelle-like animals, which were facing extinction in the wild. Today, the descendants of those animals have been reintroduced to the wild in Israel, and other descendants of that original herd from the Los Angeles Zoo live at the zoo.
The 1st Los Angeles Zoo Beast Ball was held in 1970. This safari-themed dinner dance is a major fundraiser for the Zoo, but only visitors are allowed to eat; In the interest of health and safety, the Los Angeles Zoo was the first major zoo in the United States to prohibit visitors from feeding the animals and upholds the policy today.
The Los Angeles Zoo became an accredited member of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in 1972. Just 2 years later, Dr. Warren D. Thomas became director of the zoo.
Thomas assembled one of the world’s most respected animal collections during his 17-year tenure. The zoo acquired rare and endangered species, including the Sumatran rhino, Jentink’s and Zebra duikers, yellow-footed rock kangaroos, giant antelopes, gerenuks, emperor tamarins, and bongos. The Andrew Norman Education Center, the ZooMobile, Wolf Woods, and Monkey Island were all built in the 1970s Thomas era, as were the new exhibits for gorillas, orangutans, and flamingos.
In the 1980s, the Zoo became part of the new California Condor Recovery Program. In 1982, the zoo built the extensive “condorminiums,” which are still considered among the largest and best condor recovery program facilities. In 1982 the Ahmanson Koala House was dedicated. The Los Angeles Zoo is currently the only zoo in the world to display these nocturnal animals in a dark environment.
Today, the Los Angeles Zoo is located in the heart of the second largest city in the United States. Nearly 11/2 million visitors visit the zoo each year to see one of the largest and best collections of animals in the country.