Q&A with Dan Simon, new CEO of Sacramento Zoo

Portrait by Andri Tambunan

Is today your first day on the job?

It is technically my first day, yes. I’m actually not in Sacramento yet. I’m still in Texas. I’m an AZA [Association of Zoos & Aquariums] accreditation inspector, so I’m actually inspecting another zoo for their AZA accreditation this week.

Do you need to give up your inspector role for your new position here?

No. It’s a peer inspection system. The AZA chooses either zoo directors or specialists in each part of the accreditation inspection, such as animal care and veterinary care. My specialty is operations.

As I’m sure you know, the Sacramento Zoo has had concerns about its ability to hold onto its AZA accreditation. The zoo has been accredited since 1979, but in 1996, it came very close to losing its accreditation. The next inspection is in 2029. Can you talk about why accreditation is so important for a zoo?

Yeah. The accreditation program really is viewed by the industry as the gold standard. It looks at everything—your animal habitats, animal care and spaces, your campus, your education programs, your signage, your finances, and safety and security—to make sure everything is stable. It also looks at how the zoo is supporting wildlife conservation—both through education at the zoo and then beyond the zoo’s walls.

Given its size and recent uncertainty about its future, what are the biggest challenges for our city’s zoo? 

In general, the zoo is in pretty good shape. I think space is going to be a challenge at [the current] site. I think the last time the zoo expanded was in the ’60s, and obviously the Sacramento area has grown significantly since then and so has visitation to the zoo. We need to study if the zoo is able to accommodate the guests on that evolving basis. How can we work

with this site to not only meet those standards today, but also in the future? I think the animal collection drives some of that too. A lot of [visitors’] favorite animals are some of the larger ones, and if we want new exhibits with new animals, we need to adjust those spaces accordingly.

Speaking of large spaces, before this position, you ran the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas, which has over 1,100 animals in over 1,800 acres. The Sacramento Zoo is much smaller, with about 300 animals in a little over 14 acres. What drew you to this position?

I think the Sacramento Zoo is in a really, really wonderful location in Land Park. The tree canopy is great. The site is just beautiful. When I first saw the zoo, that’s what really struck me. It’s clear that the community loves the zoo and they want to support it. And as I walked the zoo, I thought it had a really interesting collection. It has a lot of the animals that either I’ve worked with in the past or I’ve always wanted to work with.

Prior to Fossil Rim, I spent my career in traditional zoo settings. Fossil Rim was kind of the outlier. [At Fossil Rim], animal management is different, as well as the guest experience, meaning that rather than walking through a zoo, the guests at Fossil Rim will either be on one of the guided tour vans or they can drive through in their own vehicle. But most of my background is in traditional zoos. I was at Great Plains Zoo in South Dakota for about 13 years, and that’s about a 45-acre zoo. And following that, I was at ZooTampa in Tampa, Florida. It’s about a 65-acre zoo.

You mentioned walking the site. What were some of the specific things that caught your eye?

Well, I’m a big giraffe fan, and they have a great giraffe area. They do a giraffe encounter there [where guests can feed the giraffes]. And next door to that is a white rhino, which Fossil Rim also has. Those animals are near and dear to my heart, so it was good to see those, as well as a relative of the giraffe—the okapi. The zoo has a great okapi exhibit that gives you a great viewing of that animal. And it’s a species that needs help [the okapi is classified as an endangered species], so I’m glad the zoo is involved in that. There’s also a fantastic veterinary facility—they have a great partnership with UC Davis. So that area is super strong. Just walking the site and seeing how the zoo was laid out, and the potential that was there really got me excited for the opportunity.

I know it’s only your first day, but what are some goals you have for the zoo?

For one, we really want to create engaging spaces for kids and families, and that could be in exhibits or it could be in education spaces. Could we even develop future exhibits where we are working with an endangered animal that’s native to another country, and develop a partnership with a group in that country that’s working in the wild to help save that animal? And what can we do at the Sacramento Zoo to advance either research or breeding that could possibly assist that group in the wild?

At Fossil Rim, we were involved in the introduction of the scimitar-horned oryx back into Chad, Africa, through our cooperation with Sahara Conservation. We actually shipped some of our oryx over there and they were able to re-establish a population that was classified as extinct and now has been upgraded to endangered, which still isn’t great, but there’s now a breeding herd of about 600 animals that are in the wild that weren’t there before. We want to make sure people see the work that’s done at the zoo and how coming to the zoo and learning and contributing can really help save animals in the wild.

That leads to another question that I wanted to ask you about. Many people feel that zoos are anachronistic these days. A long time ago, they were the only way you could really see these kinds of animals, but with the internet and streaming, people can see them anytime. As somebody who has spent much of your professional life in zoos, what do you say to that? How does a modern zoo stay relevant, especially with the size of our current zoo?

I think nothing replaces that in-person experience when you’re at a zoo. And visitation to zoos continues to grow. So that tells you that there’s still a demand out there for people who want to see animals and have those connections. And if you’re doing it the right way, then that’s an opportunity and an experience that just can’t be replaced, outside of trying to go find these animals in the wild, and sometimes you can’t even find them in the wild anymore. The contributions that zoos make to wildlife conservation and education and making those connections, I think is still very, very relevant and very, very important. This might be the first time that kids are coming face-to-face with a rhino, or getting that  close to a giraffe. It makes an impression on them, and as they get older, they’re going to care about animals, and hopefully they’re going to contribute to wildlife conservation in the future, and maybe even want to make it a career. Maybe they want to be a researcher. So that’s really at the heart of what we do.

Conservation is obviously a big part of Fossil Rim’s mission. How is the Sacramento Zoo currently involved in conservation efforts and how could it grow or improve?

The Sacramento Zoo participates in a lot of Species Survival Plan programs. [SSP is a coordinated effort developed by the AZA to manage and conserve threatened or endangered species within accredited zoos and aquariums.] They also do some work with specific species to support them in the wild, and that can include sending financial support or [providing] management expertise to help organizations that are working with those animals in the wild and are trying to re-establish those wild populations. And that’s something that I will be looking at, seeing how we can be more directly involved with some organizations that are working with those animals in the wild. And it may be here in the U.S., or it may be overseas, depending on what the focus is. But that’s certainly something I want to bring to the Sacramento Zoo.

I’m sure you know that for various reasons, the zoo has lost a number of species over the years that it can no longer host due to its limited size and changing standards regarding how much space certain species should have. For example, Sacramento no longer has elephants, tigers, bears, gorillas, hippos and others. Are any of these animals ones you foresee coming back to the zoo?

I think that’s a big question. There’s still a lot of research and planning to do before we get to that point. I don’t think the site will support elephants just because that’s an example of a standard that’s really increased over the past 20, 30 years. Elephant exhibits need to be big, and the Sacramento Zoo just doesn’t have that kind of space to have elephants without a significant expansion. [The zoo’s last elephant departed in 1991.] Looking at future additions, it would be potentially on the big cat side. I think probably the most likely to return would be tigers. And I’ve worked with tigers before, so I have a good idea of the kind of facilities that they would need.

Lastly, the zoo’s 100th anniversary is coming up in 2027. Any plans for the milestone birthday?

I don’t know yet, but I think it’s a great opportunity to really have a conversation with the community and call their attention to what an institution the zoo has been in Sacramento for 100 years. That will be very exciting.

This interview has been edited for length, flow and clarity.