Giant pandas, tiger attacks and the ugly fight to control the San Francisco Zoo

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

Molting peacocks squawked in the distance and a Pacific breeze whispered through the eucalyptus as flamingo keeper Liz Gibbons tidied her station at the San Francisco Zoo.
It had been an unusually cold summer in a city famous for them. Marooned on 'a breathtaking piece of land' at the peninsula's far western edge, steps from the deadly surf at Ocean Beach, the timeworn seaside menagerie had endured weeks of gray gloom.
But late that July afternoon, the sun broke through the clouds. Then word began to spread.
'Everybody was like, 'Oh my God, did you hear?'' the keeper recalled. 'It's the news we've been waiting for.'
For more than a year, the keepers, gardeners, train drivers and office staff of Teamsters Local 856 had been fighting to unseat their boss, longtime San Francisco Zoo Chief Executive Tanya Peterson.
They were not alone.
A growing chorus of animal activists, government watchdogs and civic leaders had called for Peterson to step down. In May, the San Francisco Zoological Society, the park's nonprofit operator, split down the middle in a failed attempt to remove her.
From late last spring through early this summer, there was a vote of no confidence by the union, a blistering exposé in the San Francisco Chronicle, a damning report by the Animal Control and Welfare Commission, a looming audit by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a hail-Mary intercession by Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Even the consul general of China had privately sought Peterson's ouster.
'He was like, 'You have issues — fix them,'' said Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose district includes the zoo.
A similar fight recently sent fur flying in Los Angeles, where the city and its former nonprofit zoo partner have locked horns over control of a $50-million endowment. At stake in San Francisco's power struggle is a pair of cuddly new tourist magnets: two giant pandas from China, hailed as a coup for the tarnished Golden City when then-Mayor London Breed inked the deal to bring them last year.
Only two other American zoos have pandas: San Diego and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. In San Francisco, where nearly a quarter of residents identify as Chinese, the thrill was palpable. City Hall hoped the panda prestige would burn off any lingering haze of a doom loop.
'We're getting our house in order,' Lurie said. 'We already are a world-class city. When the pandas arrive in San Francisco, that's just going to be yet another draw.'
Others saw the black-and-white bears as a rebuke to Trumpian isolationism.
'The best response to the displeasure of Washington is to be awesome and successful,' Melgar said. 'The pandas are a part of our success and a part of our value system.'
For Peterson, who led the zoo since 2008, bringing a pair of the world's most sought-after animals to San Francisco was a dream come true. The political urgency and multimillion-dollar price tag seemed to ensure her continued leadership.
'The same day that the [Zoological Society] board was meant to vote her out, she let everyone know she was meeting with the Chinese Consulate,' said activist journalist Justin Barker of SF Zoo Watch. Peterson 'essentially tells the Board of Supervisors, 'If you move forward with this audit, you might not get pandas.''
So how did the ace up her leopard-print sleeve bring her down?
Peterson did not respond to requests for comment. In an emailed statement, zoo spokesperson Sam Singer said she 'served with distinction and devotion.'
In her own message to staff this month, Peterson likened her planned departure on Aug. 1 to the death of the zoo's beloved silverback gorilla, writing that 'some animals may leave this earth, but they never leave our souls.'
'It has been an honor to serve you, our animals, and the loyal constituents of this amazing community,' she said.
For workers, her exit brought elation.
'I haven't seen this level of positivity and excitement ever,' said Stephanie Carpenter, a reptile and amphibian keeper.
Former carnivore curator Travis Shields name-checked the infamous large cat wrangler from the Netflix series 'Tiger King' when asked what the next zoo leader should bring in comparison with Peterson.
'I don't think [keepers] care who comes next,' he said. 'It can't be any worse unless Joe Exotic comes in — and he's still in prison.'
But the long fight has clawed open old wounds. Many in and around the zoo described the bitter panda power struggle as the worst crisis the institution has faced since the fatal tiger attack that vaunted Peterson to her current position and nearly shut down the zoo.
'They're holding their breath,' said one former manager, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. 'It's a similar feeling to after the tiger got out — what's going to happen to everything?'
For Peterson's usurpers, the $25-million question is now: What's going to happen to the pandas?
The rise of Tanya Peterson is inextricably linked to the fall of Tatiana the tiger, the first and only animal to escape and kill a visitor at an Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited facility.
San Francisco acquired the 2½ -year-old, 242-pound Siberian from the Denver Zoo in 2005 as a mate for its 14-year old male Tony. They lived in the tiger grotto and were fed at the Art Deco-style Lion House, built for the original Fleishhacker Zoo by the Works Progress Administration.
The park's original Depression-era structures are iconic, rising gray and craggy from the muted landscape like the Monterey cypress through the ever-present fog.
'The zoo is right on the water, it's right next to the beach and all the structures are daily battered by the fog and the wind and the sand and the salt,' Melgar said.
Much of the century-old site is in disrepair.
'The infrastructure really left a lot to be desired,' said Manuel Mollinedo, who took over as the executive director of the San Francisco Zoo in 2004 after a successful turnaround at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Twenty years before Tatiana arrived, the tiger grotto was briefly repurposed to house two giant pandas, Yun-Yun and Ying-Xin, who passed through during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics before visiting again in 1985.
Those publicity tours preceded a slump in attendance through the mid-1990s. In 1993, the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society took over operations, while the city retained ownership of the property.
Many zoos are run on a similar nonprofit model, including the Bronx Zoo and the San Diego Zoo, Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums President Dan Ashe said. Others, such as the Los Angeles Zoo, are run by cities or for profit.
By the mid-aughts, efforts to draw in more blue-collar visitors had begun to bear fruit, and tax records show more than a million people were coming each year.
'The zoo had really turned a corner,' Mollinedo said. 'Our attendance was the highest it had ever been since the pandas were brought in 20 years before.'
Then, during a public feeding in the Lion House in December 2006, Tatiana reached under the bars and grabbed keeper Lori Komejan by the arm.
The tiger mauled her as she attempted to drag her into the cage, leading to permanent damage, according to a lawsuit later settled with the city.
But that wasn't the end of it. One year after that incident, on Christmas Day 2007 — Tatiana escaped, mauling two men and killing a teenager.
The city and the zoo ultimately reached financial settlements with the injured men and the family of 17-year-old Carlos Eduardo Sousa Jr. A federal investigation found panda-era modifications probably paved the way for Tatiana's escape.
'It was really rough for everybody,' said Gibbons, the flamingo keeper, who grew up in the Outer Sunset neighborhood and climbed the ranks through the zoo's youth volunteer program. 'I remember the city wanting to close it as a zoo and have it be a sanctuary.'
Instead, the board pushed Mollinedo out and installed Peterson, a fellow board member and an attorney at Hewlett-Packard, whose then-husband had just run the finance committee for then-Mayor Gavin Newsom's reelection campaign.
'She said all the right things — that she wanted to hear from staff, that her door was always open,' longtime zoo gardener Marc Villa said. 'For the time being, it was kind of a breath of fresh air.'
Echoing other critics, Mollinedo said Peterson 'knew nothing about animals.' But she made up for it with philanthropic prowess.
'She's a good fundraiser, I'll give her that,' said San Francisco Recreation and Park Commissioner Larry Mazzola Jr., who heads the zoo advisory committee.
As interim CEO, Peterson swapped her corporate wardrobe for ostrich-feathered sheaths, tiger-striped hatbands, snakeskin-patterned coats and cheetah-spotted sneakers.
Her early tenure was already marked by constant tension between what animal experts felt needed fixing and what donors wanted done. Outrage over half-finished safety measures led the Teamsters to their first no-confidence vote in 2014.
'All of this has been degenerating for a long time,' Melgar said. 'We have not had labor peace at that institution for years.'
By 2024, the zoo's annual attendance had slipped to 700,000 — 15% below the nadir after the tiger attack, and roughly two-thirds of the yearly visitors to the Oakland Zoo across the bay.
The pandas were supposed to fix all those problems. Instead, they fomented a coup.
When Breed announced the panda deal late last April, zookeepers were shocked.
'None of the senior managers knew anything about it,' Villa said. 'Everybody's scrambled: How do we make this work? Where are we going to put them? It was just, 'Hey, we're getting pandas!''
It was a week after the union's second vote of no confidence against Peterson. To many, the move felt emblematic of her leadership flaws.
'If we do have a vision for this zoo besides pandas, it's not been communicated very well,' Villa said.
Pandas are wildly popular with the public. But they're a thornier prospect for zoos, experts warn.
The bears cannot be kept near lions or other large carnivores. They need a special diet, experienced keepers and state-of-the-art new enclosures. For San Francisco, the cost has been estimated at $25 million.
Raising that money will fall to the interim CEO, which San Francisco has not yet named. The search for a permanent replacement will pit San Francisco against two of the state's premier animal attractions, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the San Diego Zoo.
Despite the promise of greater oversight and the possibility of more funding from the city, many animal activists and former zoo staff remain staunchly opposed to the panda project.
Some current keepers also expressed concerns.
'Guests are always asking, 'Where are the tigers? Where are the monkeys? Where are all these animals that used to be here?' We need to take care of the animals we have right now,' said Carpenter, the reptile keeper.
But City Hall remains staunchly pro-panda. So does the Chinese Consulate, the Teamsters and the Board of Supervisors, which just last month threatened to withhold $4 million from the Zoological Society over its failure to produce audit paperwork.
'People are proud that we're doing this, and want us to pull it off,' Melgar said. 'The pandas will have a view of the ocean!'
The Chinese visitors were originally slated to arrive at the end of this year. Then, this spring, they were assured by next April, just after the Super Bowl. That date has been pushed again, to the end of 2026.
'We don't know where we're going,' Villa said. 'Everything runs on rumors and speculation.'
For now, the Teamsters are keeping their ears perked, waiting for good news to swirl in with the fog.