Riverbanks Zoo and Garden: Forty Wild Years

Introduction: An Award-winning Zoo and Garden

| 1 | Introduction An Award-winning Zoo and Garden By almost any measure, Riverbanks Zoo and Garden is an institution of regional and national significance: Two-time winner of the Governor’s Cup as South Carolina’s Most Outstanding Tourist Attraction by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce; Voted Outstanding Regional Attraction by the Capital City/Lake Murray Tourism Region; Three-time winner as “Travel Attraction of the Year” by the Southeast Tourism Society; Hailed by Horticulture magazine as one of the nation’s ten gardens that inspire; Named one of twenty great botanical gardens and arboretums across North America by HGTV; Voted “Conservation Organization of the Year” by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation and National Wildlife Federation; Five-time winner of the prestigious Edward H. Bean Award by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums; Three-time winner of the International Conservation Award by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Recognized today as one of America’s best zoos, Riverbanks Zoo and Garden began in the early 60s as the dream of a handful of | 3 | Introduction Columbia-area business leaders, who envisioned a small children’s zoo featuring cows, chickens, raccoons, and other native wildlife. While their dream never materialized, their effort was later incorporated into a grand plan to develop a large park on the banks of the lower Saluda River. The zoo’s first executive director, John Mehrtens, added an intriguing layer to the Riverbanks story. A bombastic native of the Bronx, New York, Mehrtens possessed a “damn the torpedoes” attitude and was determined to build what he considered the perfect zoo. When the Columbia Zoological Park finally opened on April 25, 1974, residents were both confused and proud— confused by the fact that the small children’s zoo had somehow grown into a full-blown zoological park with lions, tigers, and bears, yet proud that Columbia now had something that could not be found in Atlanta, Charlotte, or Charleston. In the first six years after opening, however, the zoo struggled. Its name was changed to Riverbanks Zoo, Mehrtens’s firing was front-page news, and vital operating funds were withheld by the local governments . By the summer of 1976, Palmer “Satch” Krantz had been hired as executive director. That decision, combined with a change in philosophy of the zoo’s governing board, led to a reassessment of the park and its position in the community. The tide turned in 1980 as local governments came together to stabilize the zoo’s finances. As a result Riverbanks experienced a period of planned and sustained growth throughout the 1980s, and by 1990 Riverbanks was recognized as one of America’s best small zoos with an annual attendance of 850,000 visitors. Energized by this success, Riverbanks crossed the lower Saluda River in 1995 to develop a seventy-acre botanical garden. Designed by one of the nation’s premiere (facing) Two elephants splashing. Photograph by Richard W. Rokes. (below) Amur tiger and cubs. | 4 | Riverbanks Zoo and Garden garden design firms, Environmental Planning and Design of Pittsburgh, Riverbanks Botanical Garden garnered almost immediate national attention and has since been hailed by Horticulture magazine as one of the nation’s ten gardens that inspire and by HGTV as one of the twenty great botanical gardens and arboretums across North America. The turn of the twenty-first century brought Riverbanks’ most ambitious expansion. Dubbed Zoo 2002, this $20 million project built a state-of-the-art birdhouse and recreated Africa’s Ndoki Forest with elephants, gorillas and meerkats. The project also constructed a mile-long road in West Columbia leading to a new, dedicated entrance at Riverbanks Botanical Garden. During this time South Carolina developed an extraordinary sister-state relationship with Queensland, Australia, resulting in the premier of Queensland gifting Riverbanks with two highly sought-after koalas. These remarkable major exhibits and improvements helped propel Riverbanks into worldclass status. Today Riverbanks Zoo and Garden is one of the best-attended zoos in the United States, welcoming more than one million guests each year. And, in a city with a metropolitan population of about seven hundred thousand, the zoo’s private, nonprofit support organization, Riverbanks Society, boasts more than thirty-three thousand member households, making it one of the largest zoo societies per capita in the nation. While the roles of zoos and botanical gardens continually evolve, unstable economic conditions threaten to weaken funding from both public and private sectors...