Zoological Society Raises Additional $1 Million for Rhino Project

Layout for new rhino facility. Milwaukee County Zoo.

The Zoological Society of Milwaukee has raised an additional $1 million for the long planned development of a new rhino habitat at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

The additional funding will be replace approximately $750,000 in taxpayer funding for the approximately $23 million project and add an additional $250,000 for the buildout out of a classroom in the facility, Zoo Director Amos Morris told supervisors on the board’s Committee on Finance Thursday.

“We were fortunate to be in a position to increase our donation from the time the contract was originally signed,” said Jodi Gibson, president and CEO of the society.

The zoo broke ground on the new rhino habitat in April. It will replace an existing, outdated and dilapidated rhino facility built in the 1950s and provide an experience for zoo visitors that feels like a wildlife park, according to the zoo. The zoo plans to acquire critically endangered Eastern Black Rhinos once construction is finished. As of 2017, there were fewer than 1,000 estimated to be living in the wild.

The zoological society is a nonprofit created to support the zoo through fundraising and educational programming. Part of its funding comes from annual society memberships. The organization’s roots go all the way back to the early 20th century and the former Washington Park Zoo, the precursor to the county zoo at 10001 W. Bluemound Rd.

The society’s total funding for the rhino project is now above $7 million. Usually, the society and the county split funding for major projects 50/50. However, inflation in recent years has caused project costs to skyrocket, outpacing society’s fundraising. Before the inflationary increases, the organization had fundraised 50% of the total project cost.

Then-supervisor and current Ald. Peter Burgelis, upset at the county having to kick in more for the project, codified the practice of the 50/50 split for infrastructure projects at the zoo with an amendment to the 2024 budget.

The society’s new fundraising for the rhino project may also pay dividends for the zoo’s operations in the long run, Gibson said Thursday.

“The [classroom] can be used to further advance the mission of the zoo,” she said, “but also generate incremental rental revenue because it can be a rental space for the zoo.”

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