The Akron Zoo plans to break ground in 2025 on a nearly 12,000-square-foot veterinary hospital.
The facility will be located behind the Landon & Cynthia Knight Pride of Africa and is intended to help meet the needs of the zoo as it continues to grow — it will open in 2026.
Ohio House Bill 2 earmarked $2 million toward the projected cost of nearly $12 million. The remainder of the funding will come from donors and the zoo’s budget.
“We’re fundraising for as much of it as we can, both for the hospital and our giraffe expansion project and other things throughout this levy period,” said veterinarian Brittany Rizzo, the zoo’s director of animal health.
New building will meet expanding needs
The existing Roger J. Sherman Center for Animal Care, built nearly 30 years ago, is a modest 8,500 square feet and lacks storage and adequate holding space for the larger animals the zoo staff now cares for.
Due to the cramped quarters, the surgery and treatment spaces, pharmacy, lab, radiation, dental table and other treatment needs are housed in one shared space within the hospital.
“We are going to be moving to the newer standards of having everything in their own individual spaces and having the room to be able to accommodate even more animals getting treated at the same time,” Rizzo said.
In the new hospital, there will be ample office space, holding areas for all species of the zoo’s animals – whether for treatment or quarantine – and upgraded treatment spaces to better help the veterinarian staff care for all Akron Zoo animals. The animal health staff will also be getting a meeting space and kitchenette.
“A great way to look at it is when we built this hospital, the Akron Zoo had about 100+ animals,” said Elena Bell, senior marketing and public relations manager for the zoo. “We say we have more than 2,000 animals, … but if you look at every individual [animal], we’re actually at more than 4,000 animals.”
Bell said the zoo will count the bats and cockroaches as one animal, for example, rather than counting each individual bat or cockroach. “If you look at every Madagascar hissing cockroach that we have, and every bat and everything, it brings [the numbers] up.”
In the last 30 years, the zoo has also expanded the number of species, including more hoofstock (animals with hooves), larger primates and the zoo’s “ever-expanding aviary collection,” Rizzo said.
“I really appreciate an animal that can outsmart me,” she said. “If they make it difficult for me to treat them, as frustrating as that can be, I enjoy the challenge.”
She is one of two veterinarians on the Akron Zoo care team, which also has three veterinary technicians, one full-time keeper and one part-time keeper.
Keriann Hurst started as an associate veterinarian at the zoo full-time in January after being part of the team in some capacity for the last two years. “Every day you’re faced with a new challenge – or like problem – you’ve never had to deal with before,” she said while evaluating an endangered white-winged wood duck.
The zoo participates in more than 40 species survival plan programs and six Saving Animals from Extinction programs through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. These national and worldwide programs look at genetic diversity of the animals around the globe in order to make recommendations on breeding plans to preserve the world’s biodiversity.
The new hospital will allow the Akron Zoo to continue supporting these programs through medical care, including breeding-soundness exams of animals being moved to other institutions and of animals being brought into the Akron Zoo with the intention of being bred as part of an SSP or SAFE program.