Talk:San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

Delete?

Delete this page! It serves no purpose. The information contained here could be added as a single sentence in the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park articles. It was proposed more than a year ago to merge this into the San Diego Zoo (and San Diego Wild Animal Park) pages. Discussion has been going on at the San Diego Zoo discussion page linked here. Time to make a decision? --MelanieN (talk) 17:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to comment, please go to this other page so the discussion stays in one place. --anietor (talk) 18:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my suggestion to eliminate the page - and have moved my discussion to the linked page as suggested. --MelanieN (talk) 15:08, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Links for further reading/expansion...

http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/zoological-society-of-san-diego — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfield (talk • contribs) 04:04, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Sources

I'm dropping some additional sources here for later use in improving the article:

• SDZG history timeline by the SDZG Library
• Sciencewatch 2009 article discussing Institute for Conservation Research
• WAZA interview with Debra Erickson discussing the 2010 rebranding

--IllaZilla (talk) 14:57, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

While we're at it we should revise or reconsider the section on donations to the society. Frankly, the main reason that information is here was to have sourced content about the Society itself in the article - to prevent a proposed merger to San Diego Zoo. See Talk:San Diego Zoo#Merging with Zoological Society of San Diego. That is no longer an issue - we have plenty of content - and we can do as we wish with the fundraising section.

Also, there is little or nothing at Wikipedia about the Institute for Conservation Research - originally CRES, the Center for Research on Endangered Species, later the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species. I could maybe do something with that. --MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The section on funding can be rewritten/expanded to be more of an overview. SDZG's fundings are often well-published, particularly grants from the city, large donations made by members to fund specific projects, etc., and this has played a large role in how the organization, its facilities, and its projects have been shaped over the decades. Information on the funding of specific projects can go in the articles on the individual parks, although I think the info on the Charity Navigator rating, and further information on various awards and commendations ZSSD/SDZG has received, are pertinent here.

In the interview with Debra Erickson linked above, she mentions that one of the reasons for renaming the Zoological Society of San Diego to San Diego Zoo Global was that people had a hard time remembering the original name. I imagine that one of the reasons for the merge suggestion was that editors had trouble distinguising the Society (as an organization) from the Zoo (as a park), not realizing that the Society was the parent organization operating the Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and CRES. The rebranding, and the statements made by the organization about it, make the structure a bit clearer, positioning SDZG as the parent organization for the various facilities and institutes. I plan to explain this in the article, using the above sources, which should help paint a clearer picture to readers.

As I go along I intend to write a section in this article about CRES/ICR. It's here that the information on the funding/building of the Beckman Center can go. I don't know whether I have enough sources at present to make a stand-alone article, but perhaps a section in this article can serve as a starting point for something more substantial down the line. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:46, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Melanie, maybe you can help me here: I'm having trouble finding information on CRES' various names. The SDZG history timeline says it was founded in 1974 as the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, but as you mention above it was originally the Center for Reasearch on Endangered Species. I can't find any sources for when or why the name changed. Also it appears from this article and the accompanying logo that by the mid-2000s the acronym stood for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species, but I can't find any information about that either. Any leads on sources discussing the whens and whys of these name changes would be greatly appreciated, as well as links to any of the organization's old logos. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:07, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The search is complicated because the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans apparently has something called the Audubon Center for Research on Endangered Species (ACRES). Here's a mention of that name at the San Diego Zoo in a 1995 book.[1] Here's another, undated.[2] So I think we can establish that that was its original name. I may be able to find out when it changed, give me a little time. Why it changed, I can't give you anything citable and I doubt if it was ever publicly commented on. I do know what some Zoo and CRES people told me, some years ago, but that's not anything Wikipedia can use. (They said there were two reasons: one, because "research" has a negative connotation to some people, who think "research" on animals means horrible lab experiments, vivisection, that kind of thing. And two, because "reproduction" was a better word anyhow for what the Center was doing.) You're right that later, when they talked about the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, they implied that had always been its name.[3] It may not be worth making it into a big issue; at most maybe just a sentence "Founded as the Center for Research on Endangered Species, later renamed the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species". Looks like there's plenty of coverage for the change from Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species to Institute for Conservation Research in 2009.[4] --MelanieN (talk) 18:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, the new additions are marvelous! Great job! I want to do some research on one thing: I think Benirschke had been saving genetic material even before the founding of CRES - possibly since the 1950s. Let me see what I can find out about that. --MelanieN (talk) 15:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

This source says Benirschke began his collection in 1965. And this says that the frozen material was "a project established earlier and brought to the zoo." That was my understanding, that his initial collection formed the nucleus of the Frozen Zoo. Most Zoo folks nowadays talk as if the formation of CRES was the start of the collection. I'll keep working on how to deal with this. It's a minor point but I think it deserves to be mentioned. --MelanieN (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Done. In your paragraph about achievements of CRES, do you want to mention the cloning of a Javan banteng? It got a lot of press because the animal survived and lived at the zoo for seven years. [5] [6] [7] --MelanieN (talk) 18:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

BTW you probably do have enough material now for a separate article on ICR. --MelanieN (talk) 18:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Melanie, these sources and additions are extremely helpful. You're right; there's enough here to split off a separate article about the Institute, but I'll wait until I'm done with my expansion before I carry that out, since I keep finding things to add to the CRES section as I'm working on this article. I'd rather split it off when I feel "done" writing the section rather than before. The cloned banteng is mentioned in the (currently) last paragraph of the CRES section (beginning "In the 2000s CRES made further strides..."), but I'll add a bit more to it using the sources you've provided. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I will be less active in editing for the next few days due to a busy schedule, but will try to keep working on it opportunistically. I still consider it "under construction" and intend to dive back into it as soon as possible. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you already had the banteng. I think you're right to finish this project before launching another one. I see that the article title Institute for Conservation Research is available without needing any disambiguation. --MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Request page move

Can someone please request a page move for this article?

San_Diego_Zoo_Global is now the San Diego Zoo WildLife Alliance.

Sources

Chip3004 (talk) 00:34, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll work on this. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

 Done I will try to catch some of the double redirects - when something redirects to San Diego Zoo Global to change it to San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance - but could use some help with that. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, I messed up the first time and moved it to San Diego Zoo WildLife Alliance, with a capital L that somehow slipped into the middle of Wildlife. I think it is all fixed now. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2021 (UTC)