Into the Woods

This week, Shara Clark and I teamed up to write the Flyer's cover story on the controversy surrounding the old-growth forest in Overton Park.

The Memphis Zoo currently controls 17 acres of old-growth forest that it plans to one day use for a low-impact boardwalk through the woods. But after the zoo bulldozed four similar acres for its new Teton Trek exhibit, local grassroots group Citizens to Preserve Overton Park reformed and asked that the zoo take down their fence and return the 17 acres to public use.

To read the full story, click here.

I get the impression that the zoo — for better or for worse — has a great deal of autonomy. Yes, the zoo is owned by the city (which then contracts its management out to the Memphis Zoological Society for $100,000 a month) and reports to the city's parks division and ultimately, the City Council.

But it also gets a large chunk of its funding from private donors and the City Council doesn't seem all that concerned with what the zoo is doing, as long as it continues to prosper.

CPOP recently went before the council to ask that the zoo's boundary be redrawn and the surviving acres of old-growth forest be protected in perpetuity. They also asked for an update to the Overton Park master plan and the zoo's contract with the now-defunct Memphis Park Commission. They have also followed up with a letter to council members and Mayor Willie Herenton.

If you can't get baby pandas ...

try for baby elephants.

The Memphis Zoo confirmed the pregnancy of African elephant Asali, which — if all goes well — will make her the first elephant to deliver a calf in the Zoo's 102-year history.

Asali was artificially inseminated last September (with material collected from bull elephants at the Jacksonville, Florida, and Pittsburgh zoos. Insert your own joke) and because elephant gestation is 22 long months, should deliver NEXT July.

In anticipation of the birth, the zoo says it will renovate the inside of the elephant barn to provide more stalls and more usable space for the elephants. The elephant yard also will be expanded toward Northwest Passage in the space currently housing the Zoo greenhouses and concessions. (No word on where those things will be moved.)

Over all, the expansion will give the elephants about twice as much space as they have in the current exhibit.

And just because no post about baby zoo animals is complete without a picture, here ya go.