Cecil somersaulted onto his back, rubbed his head and opened his mouth in what looked like a smile. Within seconds, he rolled back into a seated position, dignified and still as if posing for a photo.
The playful moves of the San Francisco Zoo’s new silverback gorilla, which debuted last month after arriving this summer from Kentucky, seem like a good omen for his new home, which is working on its own comeback.
“Cecil is special to me because we started at the zoo at the same time,” said Cassandra Costello, interim co-CEO and the new face of the zoo, during a recent tour. She peered over the enclosure, pleased to see Cecil showing “playful and goofy” behavior – and seeming to thrive.
Cecil is the new silverback western lowland gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
Costello was hired in July as chief operational officer at the San Francisco Zoological Society, the nonprofit that runs the city-owned facility, after eight years at San Francisco Travel Association. Her role changed almost immediately, when the previous longtime CEO and executive director, Tanya Peterson, retired Aug. 1. Peterson left with the encouragement of Mayor Daniel Lurie after over a year of controversies and investigations into concerns about management, animal welfare and worker safety. The Zoological Society board is currently looking for a permanent CEO, due to be in place next spring.
The zoo has made many strides forward since Costello’s arrival. In September, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors released $3 million in annual funding that it had withheld from the Zoological Society earlier in the summer after it reportedly did not comply with a city audit. (The zoo is now in compliance.) It hosted a successful annual fundraiser last month, according to Costello, and has opened a few new exhibit spaces.
A new part of the Lipman Family Madagascar Center opened recently at the San Francisco Zoo, including this habitat for radiated tortoises. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
Costello meets regularly with zoo employees, whose union issued a vote of no-confidence in Peterson last year.
“Since August, the zoo has been much more collaborative with the union,” said union representative Corey Hallman, who said the previous CEO did not attend such meetings. “We have addressed many issues we have been trying to address for a number of years.”
Hallman said employee morale is up and that employees are hopeful. And he was pleased that the board reached out to him to provide input on their search for a new CEO. “That’s a major shift in our relationship with the board.”
Costello praised the expertise of the zoo’s employees and said the zoo has an open-door policy. “Making people feel seen and heard, appreciated and respected is a big part of the investment of time,” she said.
Berani, a male Bornean orangutan, at the San Francisco Zoo. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
The zoo still hopes to bring a pair of giant pandas from China, Costello said, though she could not give a timeline for their potential arrival or details about how much fundraising has been done for them.
“We are excited about the possibility of bringing pandas to San Francisco, and we are working closely with the Chinese government,” she said in an email.
The project has been through many delays since former Mayor London Breed reached a tentative agreement with China last year, with the goal of having pandas by late this year.
A lion at the San Francisco Zoo’s Lion House, the proposed home for an exhibit for giant pandas. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
Costello pointed to two large habitats at the zoo’s Lion House that would be renovated for pandas. The city has already approved permits for the renovation, which has not begun. A male and female lion reside there now, so a new habitat would also have to be built for them.
Animal welfare advocates oppose bringing pandas to the zoo based on several concerns, including allegations of inhumane breeding practices in China reported by the New York Times, said Michael Angelo Torres, the chair of the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare and a Bay Area campaigner for the animal rights group In Defense of Animals.
On other fronts, Torres said he’s overall “incredibly hopeful about things going forward” at the zoo, after meeting with Costello. “I find her very genuine,” he said.
The commission published a scathing report about the zoo last year, calling it “unsafe for visitors and animals,” which the zoo vehemently disagreed with. The report, which came in the wake of Chronicle investigations into worker safety and animal welfare concerns, caused the number of visitors to decline, Jeff Pace, now Costello’s co-CEO, later told the Joint Zoo Committee, an advisory group that includes zoo board members and Recreation and Park Commissioners,.
San Francisco Zoo Interim co-CEO Cassandra Costello and zookeeper Julianna Brown feed the giraffes at the zoo. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
Costello did not specifically address recent trends, saying attendance has declined since 2019, as is the case with other institutions.
Born in San Francisco, where she grew up going to the zoo, Costello has been meeting with the public by hosting tables at events everywhere from Chinatown to Sunset Dunes, the new park that starts across the street from the zoo at Ocean Beach.
“This is part of the grassroots community outreach and rebuilding trust,” Costello said at a public meeting last month.
Ring-tailed lemurs at the San Francisco Zoo. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
She wants to remind the public about conservation efforts the zoo does, including behind the scenes. For example, Duke University, which has a lemur research center, selected the zoo to host a breeding pair of critically endangered blue-eyed black lemurs – which won’t be seen by the public but Costello said is a testament to the work the zoo has done with its resident lemurs.
It also recently opened a new exhibit called “Under the Canopy” to educate the public about the impact of climate change on the Amazon rainforest.
The zoo’s new Under the Canopy exhibit educates visitors about the impact of climate change and habitat loss on the Amazon rainforest. (Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle)
Costello said she hopes the city will provide more capital investment to the zoo for needed renovations as the facility approaches its 100-year anniversary, noting that some visitors have been coming for generations.
“I think people do love this space,” she said. “It’s a civic institution and it’s an educational community hub. And that’s an important thing to have in a city.”
This article originally published at ‘Major shift’ at San Francisco Zoo as new leadership takes charge.