As animals were transferred into their exhibits and field researchers readied their things for the day, Frank Ridgley sat at his desk, haloed by the edge of a whiteboard.
The whiteboard held a chart of 14 species written in black Expo—including the flamingo, Florida bonneted bat and panther. Beneath each name was a list of objectives to complete in the 2025 year to further conservation efforts for those local Florida natives.
“‘Zoo’ has become a dirty word in the public culture,” said Ridgley, the head of the conservation and research department at Zoo Miami.
Since the time of the Ancient Egyptians, zoos have treated animals as mere entertainment, an attraction to be stared at, with little concern for their well-being. Today, consumers and visitors have become more conscious of animal cruelty, and zoos caught mistreating their creatures will inevitably see ticket sales drop.
To stay afloat, these institutions have had to shift from holding ‘animals in captivity’ to ‘animals under human care.’
Their new focus is on aiding conservation efforts in the wild, a change that some believe may be able to alter the future of species in the wild for good, and make up for lifetimes of bad.
“Zoos in the 1800s and the early 1900s could have been a lot better, and we didn’t have a good understanding of what animal welfare was and what they needed,” Ridgley said. “Sometimes they just were seen almost as animals that you put in your garden. That’s how they kind of started out. There were gardens, and they wanted some cool birds and maybe some monkeys.”
Zoo Miami began as ‘Crandon Park Zoo’ in Key Biscayne in 1948. More than 60 years later, in 2011, an official conservation division was created at the zoo, following an Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) inspection that ended in a recommendation for the facility to get involved in more field work.
The department focuses on applied conservation actions with species in its local and regional environment, as well as trying to assist the on-property species in the wild.
Communications Director Ron Magill—well-known across the nation for his many TV appearances, Emmy awards, and countless other recognitions—has seen the zoo change over his 45 years of employment at the institution.
“When I started working here, it wasn’t to work for an attraction,” Magill started. “It was to work for a conservation organization to protect these animals in the wild where they belong.”
Zoo Miami does not take any animals out of the wild unless considerably injured or rescued from a destroyed environment, not able to return back home. While Magill understands that there is this need for some animals to be in captivity to survive, he believes the “number one priority” of a zoo should be to make sure these species can survive without direct human care.
“I started getting frustrated we were spending millions of dollars building new exhibits, and we weren’t allocating significant dollars to protect the animals we chose to put on those exhibits in the wild,” Magill said.
Upon the creation of the 2008 “Amazon & Beyond” exhibit at Zoo Miami, which displays wildlife from Central and South America, Magill learned that only $30,000 of the $50 million budget was being allocated to conservation efforts towards the species in the area.
The 2014 “Florida: Mission Everglades,” exhibit, meant to “[celebrate] Florida’s remarkable wildlife and the urgent mission of conservation,” allocated not a single dollar of its budget of $33 million to conservation in Florida.
“I went to the director at the time and I said ‘this is unacceptable, we can’t do this,’” Magill recalled. “I could no longer justify raising support just to build big cages.”
Magill began to raise money on his own, and in 2015, he created an endowment that could not be spent on the zoo’s everyday operations. Instead, it could only be used on protecting species in the wild, educational programming, and scholarships.
What started with a plan to raise a million dollars soon turned to over $3 million. The endowment, he said, “provides tens of thousands, over $100,000, many times a year to organizations just doing good work in the field.”
Now, he gifts a medallion to the best efforts—the people he considers ‘conservation heroes.’ It reads, “Ron Magill: Goodwill Ambassador” on one side and “Ron Magill: Conservation Endowment” on the other, embellished with the Zoo Miami logo and a sketch of a Florida Panther with a Harpy Eagle respectively.
Soon enough, promoting—and in turn, educating visitors on— conservation became a priority for the zoo.
Another member of the conservation and research department, Invertebrate Manager Tiffany Moore, shared that the organization considers conservation to be multifaceted, with a zoos role in researching species being critical to protecting habitats and population numbers.
The institution now hosts a “Conservation Action Center,” an attempt to connect the youth with animals in need, especially those that Zoo Miami works closely with—such as the gopher tortoise and Miami tiger beetle.
As a child skipped from the giant walk-through python over to the repeating video of Magill showing guests behind the scenes, a mother sat on a nearby bench, watching over while taking in the AC’s breeze.
The mother, Daniela Arencibia, had been coming to Zoo Miami for seven years. Before the exhibit opened in 2021, Arencibia had never known of the zoo’s conservation efforts.
“I never used any of the counters they have or [asked] any of the workers,” she stated, referencing the information center and services.
The Conservation Action Center aims to make that last connection, visually demonstrating the human impact on animals so that the youngest generations can learn how to be a part of the solution, too.
“We can’t speak from a position of ‘we’re the experts,’” Magill said. “We need to make people the experts, too. This is why this is important. We’re investing in our future and our quality of life.”
With the accessibility of the Conservation Action Center—not only showing what the zoo itself does to help, but also educating others to do the same—Arencibia is proud to bring her child to Zoo Miami.
Like many other institutions now, Zoo Miami is trying to better itself one day at a time for the sake of the animals, the environment and the future. For that, promoting conservation is the key change needed.
“You know, there’s an old saying that says, ‘In the end, you protect what you love, you love what you understand and you understand what you’re taught,’” Magill said. “That’s the zoo’s main job. It’s to teach people to understand wildlife, and more importantly, understand its direct connection to us.”
