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Perspective

f you visited Brookfield Zoo this summer, you may
have seen workers on the roof of Seven Seas or heard
I I the sounds of heavy machinery behind a fenced-off
section on the West Mall. These projects and others
are the culmination of months, even years, of planning
and hard work. Seeing these projects get under way has
made this an especially exhilarating summer at the Zoo.

When we welcome back our bottlenose dolphins from Minnesota Zoo this fall, they will
be housed in a renovated Seven Seas building with a new roof, upgraded climate controls
and air purification, a new lift platform for medical care, dynamic underwater rockwork,
and improved presentation capabilities.
The West Mall will be the site of “Tropical Forests,” an expansion of our current
Tropic World habitat. It will provide over 2 acres of sunny outdoor habitats for our gorillas,
orangutans, and monkeys, plus a new Gorilla Conservation Center and state-of-the-art
learning spaces for our King Conservation Leadership Academy.
These projects are part of a bold, new Master Plan that will chart our organization’s
future development through our centennial year in 2034. Our 2022 Annual Report
contains information about the Master Plan and Tropical Forests, as well as highlights
from our thriving conservation, research, and education programs. You can find the report
on our website, CZS.org.
This issue of Gateways includes an article about The Swamp. In the 27 years since
the exhibit opened, many more wetlands have been lost—nearly half of the wetland areas
around the world are already gone. Aside from their beauty and incredible biodiversity,
wetlands provide the planet with some of its chief defenses against the impacts of climate
change. They absorb flood waters, sequester more planet-warming carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere than rain forests, and protect the coasts from erosion and storm surges
caused by more frequent and powerful storms.
To learn more about wetlands in Cook County and around the world, please take
a stroll through The Swamp. Thank you for your continued support.

Dr. Michael J. Adkesson
President & CEO, Chicago Zoological Society
Director, Brookfield Zoo

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