Why You Shouldn’t Be Surprised That The National Zoo Lost A Red Panda

[sinkingfeeling]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/24/2203051/why-you-shouldnt-be-surprised-that-the-national-zoo-lost-a-red-panda/?mobile=nc

Rusty, the adorable red panda pictured above, escaped from Washington’s National Zoo today. While everyone is hoping for Rusty’s safe return, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the decrepit state of America’s zoo system — and what that says about America’s budget priorities.

Though zoo officials still aren’t sure how Rusty got out, the National Zoo has been hard-hit by sequestration cuts. The Smithsonian Institute, which operates the National Zoo, is facing a cut to the tune of $40 million. Zoo officials told the Washington Post that they’d deal with the shortfall “mainly through freezing hiring, reducing training and delaying new equipment purchases and construction.”

Again, no one knows yet if sequestration-related cutbacks set the stage for Rusty to fly the coop (ThinkProgress has put in several calls to the Zoo’s press office and will update if and when it gets back to us). But in general, America’s zoos are chronically underfunded, leading to all sorts of unintended dangerous consequences. In their book American Zoos During the Depression: A New Deal for Animals, political science professors Jesse Donahue and Erik K. Trump document the way in which huge public outlays for zoos during the New Deal helped create the modern American zoo. They also tell a darker story: how the Great Recession destroyed zoo endowments and, absent enough private donations, funding for America’s zoos fell apart: