Zoo needs to make change in priorities

This is an open letter to Stuart Strahl, CEO of Brookfield Zoo.

Recently an innocent, endangered species entrusted to your care was killed. Killed not by the father, an Amur tiger who was reacting on instinct, but by the incompetence of your staff. This inexcusable error led to the death of a newborn and a valuable asset of the Brookfield Zoo. In recent years, Brookfield Zoo has become more enamored with building carousels and wedding pavilions than with its primary purpose of caring for those creatures upon whose very lives depend upon you and your staff. While your priorities drift to donors and galas, elephants are enclosed in cramped quarters; tigers, wolves and dolphins die.

No one doubts that zoos need better funding. Raise more money; however, if you can't raise the money and see to the welfare of those innocents in your care then resign and let someone take over who places the care of these creatures above all else. You and your staff have failed in your responsibilities. Have those directly responsible been dismissed or shunted to another less visible area? Will their continued neglect result in the loss of less popular exhibits than infant tigers?

A change in priorities needs to be done now, before more innocent lives are lost. If you are not up to it, move aside. It is not your life you are risking, but a life that cannot speak for itself.

Either change or leave.

Suzanne Berglund

Hinsdale