Dublin Zoo dates back to 1831 and is one of Dublin’s most popular attractions, welcoming over one million visitors in a normal year. Sitting on a site of more than 28 hectares (69 acres) in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, it is home to over 400 animals from around the world. Last year, Dublin Zoo launched an ambitious 10-year strategic plan.
Before Dublin: a life in zoos
Zoo biologist Dr Christoph Schwitzer is the zoo’s director. He talks to blooloop about his career, Dublin Zoo, its 10-year vision, and his goals for its future,
“I’ve always been drawn to zoos,” he says. “I’m a bit of a zoo nerd: I more or less grew up in a zoo in Cologne in Germany. My mom took me when I was a baby, and she bottle-fed me in Cologne Zoo’s Lemur house. I got the smell and sound of Lemurs very early on in my life, and I think that did it for me. I always wanted to work with Lemurs afterwards.
“So zoos came first. As soon as I could walk, I would buy my own season ticket or annual pass for Cologne Zoo. I went with my friends every day. While other children did all sorts of other things, I went to the Zoo.”
Biology & business
When he was a little older, he founded Cologne’s Zoo’s youth group:
“When it came to ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ I said, ‘Well, I should perhaps become a zoo director,’ and that’s what I set out to do.”
He went to Cologne Zoo’s director at the time, Professor Gunther Nogge:
“I asked him, ‘What do I need to do if I want to become a zoo director?’ He said to me, ‘Boy, study biology.’ So I went and studied biology. I remember when I was in my second year or so, I said to him, ‘I just wanted to check with you, should I maybe also study business or something?’ He said, ‘Ah, no. Biology gives you a good grounding. You can teach yourself business in the job.’
“Many years later, I spoke to him again, and he said, ‘If I could change one piece of advice I’ve given you, I would also say study business as well.’ I said, ‘Sorry, it’s too late. I’ve taught myself.’”
Early days of zoo conservation
Since the 1980s, he says, zoos increasingly discovered their main raison d’etre to be conservation, increasingly putting more emphasis on and resources into it:
“It started with ex situ conservation; the old zoo paradigm of breeding and reintroduction, which has worked very well for many species, but of course is not the solution to everything,” Schwitzer says.
From the early nineties onwards, he explains, zoos realized it wasn’t all about ex situ conservation, and that in situ conservation was also necessary.
“It was clear that we need to protect and save species in their natural habitats, and spend a lot more money and effort on that.”
In the wake of that wave, he was sent to Madagascar:
“I was doing my PhD at Cologne Zoo. My PhD supervisor was our zoo director, who was also a professor at Cologne University. He was the vice president of a consortium of zoos and universities that had set out to do conservation for lemurs in Madagascar. It was called the AECCL, a French acronym: The Association Européenne pour l’Etude et la Conservation des Lémuriens. Because I was his PhD student, he took me into the AGM, and asked me to take the minutes.”
Setting up a protected area in Madagascar
During the course of the meeting, it came up that they were looking for somebody who would go to a specific area in the Northwest of Madagascar where one particular critically endangered lemur species occurs:
“At the time, it was not protected. The aim was to set up a protected area in the research programme. I was at the very end of my PhD, and I said to them, ‘Guys, actually I would quite like to do that.’”
“In the end, they sent me on a recce mission for three months. I think it was back in 2003. They gave me a bit of money and sent me and a colleague to walk for three months across the entire Sahamalaza Peninsula in the middle of nowhere in rural northwest Madagascar to find a spot where we could set up a field station and run such a project.
“I recommended to the board of AECCL that there was only one place where we could possibly set up such a project because it was both based at a water source and not too difficult to get to.”
In this case, ‘not too difficult to get to’ meant a three-day journey from the capital city of Madagascar:
“It was just almost impossible to travel anywhere in Madagascar then. The roads were absolutely impassable during the rainy season. Now, it’s all different.”
Field conservation is crucial
This project got him out into the field, and into field conservation.
“When I came back, they gave me money – in the end – to set up the project. I went back there for two years with my then-girlfriend, now wife. We lived in Madagascar.”
This kind of project is, he feels, crucial:
“This is what we need to do. This is where we need to invest ourselves. Zoos are all very well, and they can play a brilliant role, but resources really need to be put into field conservation and making sure that endangered species survive.”
When they returned, Schwitzer started working at Bristol Zoo:
“We wanted to return to Madagascar first: we had follow-on jobs, but we discovered my wife was pregnant. The first thing I said to my director at Bristol zoo was, ‘I’d really like to bring my Madagascar project with me. Can I please do that?’
“So, I brought it with me, and that enabled me to keep my foot in Madagascar, working for zoos while continuing field conservation work, and the rest is history.”
Starting at Dublin Zoo
Schwitzer came to Dublin Zoo in August 2020.
“I started at a very interesting time,” he says. “When I put my hat in the ring for this position, COVID wasn’t a thing. Even when I went for an interview in January 2020, it was far away in China and nobody really knew what would happen. Then, of course, it took off.”
“Dublin Zoo is a very good zoo”, he says. It is a capital city zoo, and a national zoo, in a country that does not have many zoos. “There is Dublin Zoo, and Fota Wildlife Park in Cork, which also belongs to the Zoological Society of Ireland.”
When the Board invited him to see the zoo, it was the elephants he fell in love with:
“I hadn’t had elephants for many years; Bristol Zoo was much too small. Even though I’m a primatologist, I really elephants. When I came here, I saw this herd of 11 animals with babies, all taking a bath in the middle of the winter, and I thought, ‘This is it: I need to move.’”
Going “all out” for conservation
Dublin Zoo has, over the last two decades, been transformed, says Schwitzer:
“Twenty years ago it was a relatively small zoo. It was the fourth oldest zoo in the world, and it looked like an old zoo. My predecessor made a huge difference to that. He built it up to the standard that it is now.
“He engaged an American master planning landscape architect firm, Jones and Jones, who worked with him to design naturalistic habitats that were good for the animals, good for the visitors, and good for the staff as well. Bit by bit, over two decades, he changed the zoo entirely. It is now a very modern zoo.”
In terms of conservation, the previous director, Leo Oosterweghel, started supporting field conservation projects, both in Ireland and internationally:
“It wasn’t quite there yet, compared to some other colleagues in different parts of the world. So I have now the very nice task of going all out for conservation. The zoo is already looking good. We will, of course, continue developing it further, making it even more exciting for the Irish public. But one of my main tasks is to ramp up conservation big-time.”
Dublin Zoo’s 10-year plan
Dublin Zoo launched its ambitious 10-year strategic plan in October 2021. The first strategic goal is saving wildlife in Ireland and globally:
“That is what we’re going to do,” Schwitzer says. “Input into conservation will increase fivefold over the next 10 years; I intend to front-load that as much as I possibly can so it will happen quicker.
“To me, zoo-based conservation has three strands. One is breeding for re-introduction. Another is field conservation, and the third one, which is probably the most important strand of zoo-based conservation, which is behaviour change and advocacy.”
Behaviour change & advocacy
This, he says, is a field where so much more can be done:
“We have 1.25 million visitors a year, which is a good 25% of the Irish population; it is rare to have a zoo that has such a high percentage of the population visiting it. I think we can use these 1.25 million people as a joint force for conservation.
“We have them here for hours. They come to us of their own free will and even pay money for the experience. While we have them here, we really need to do our best not only to make them aware of the plight of the planet and of the many species inhabiting it, but to elicit action, and enable people to take action.”
It is, however, not an easy task:
“We need to work with them so that they understand what action they can take here in Ireland, as consumers, as citizens. They need to learn what it is they can change to make a difference to the world’s species and to species conservation. Then we need to enable them to do it.
“It can’t be complicated, because if it is, people won’t do it. It needs to be possible, and it needs to make a difference. It’s about changing habits, and that is really a tricky thing to do.”
Campaigns can make a difference
Over the last two decades, a number of zoos, especially in Australia and New Zealand have, he says, shown how to do it:
“In Bristol, we had started it before I left, with a couple of summer campaigns focusing on individual consumer behaviours. For instance, our very first one over there was on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified charcoal.
“We told our visitors, ‘If you do a barbecue this summer, don’t buy any old charcoal; look for the FFC logo.’ We had done some research and found that about 50% of the market penetration was FSC certified already in the wider Bristol area. The other 50% was coming from as far away as Nigeria, from unsustainable forestry, possibly from the rainforest.
“We gave people a map of all the local DIY stores, fuel stations, supermarkets selling FSC charcoal. Then we had them write a pledge, and we put their pledges on a tree display. We collected their contact details and phoned them up after the summer. We were able to show that we were actually making a difference.
“That enabled us to go back to the supermarkets and DIY stores and say, ‘If you want to work with us on this, stock more of this stuff, then we can promote you.’ Eventually, you create a snowball effect.”
A snowball effect
One zoo that is a great example of this is Auckland Zoo in New Zealand.
He explains:
“They have pretty much single-handedly changed the entire ice cream supply in New Zealand from any old palm oil to sustainable palm oil. They told their supplier, Wall’s, ‘We will only buy your ice cream if you change.’
“Because Auckland Zoo is a big visitor attraction, Wall’s agreed, and others followed suit, which led to that snowball effect. I want to replicate that here in Ireland, which is why we have put behaviour change campaigns into our strategic plan.”
Planning for the future at Dublin Zoo
The zoo’s 10-year strategic plan, ‘Dublin Zoo 200’, aims to propel the zoo to the status of a conservation organisation with global significance in time for its bicentennial celebrations in 2031.
“There are five strategic objectives,” Schwitzer says. “The first one is conservation: I’ve talked about that. Then we have one on the visitor attraction itself. All we do in and for conservation, we can only do if we are successful as a business as well.”
This applies, of course, to all zoos:
“The beauty of zoo-based conservation is that we can be in it for the long-term, because we can predict our visitor numbers, which are relatively stable year on year, excepting COVID; we are relatively stable financially, and we will be here for the foreseeable future.
“We’ve been here for 190 years, and I’m sure we’ll make it for another 190. Most other conservation organizations are reliant on short ground cycles. There are very few projects where you can make a huge difference within a year. Successful conservation is, in most cases, long-term conservation.”
New eco regions at Dublin Zoo
To be successful in any zoo-based conservation initiative, it is, he reiterates, important to have a stable, thriving business:
“We aim to get to one and a half million visitors per year by the end of the decade. At present, we are at just over a million normal day visitors, plus a quarter of a million who come to our annual Wild Lights festival.”
Dublin Zoo’s Wild Lights winter festival, which ran this year until 9 January, is a collaboration with Zigong VYA Creative Lantern Limited and has been an annual event since 2017.
“This year the theme was ‘Around the World’ because nobody was able to travel anywhere much over the last 18 months,” he says.
Schwitzer plans to boost visitor numbers by enhancing the visitor experience:
“Our master plan is built around 10 eco regions, from Asian forests all the way to African Savannah. We want to add a couple more such eco regions over the next few years. For example, we want to introduce Australia; we haven’t got a single Australian animal on-site, and that’s an omission. I’m quite fond of marsupials and monotremes.”
Spotlight on Irish wildlife
The zoo also lacks an Irish eco-region:
“We’re the national zoo of Ireland,” he says. “I think we have a duty not only to show exotic animals but to show native species as well. Being in the middle of Dublin city centre, even though we are in Phoenix Park, many people who come to us won’t have seen many of the native species.
“How many people know that Ireland actually has quite a nice and thriving population of red-billed choughs? It’s a species of bird that is really struggling in the UK. They are being reintroduced on the island of Jersey, there are some left in Cornwall, and in Wales, but Ireland has a good population of them still.”
“It would be beautiful to showcase some choughs here, and the interaction they have with coastal meadows, grazed by sheep, where they thrive.
“I’d also like to have an Irish hare exhibit. Not many people know that there is a sub-species of hare in Ireland that is very different to the ones in Britain.
“Ours are mountain hares in Ireland, the same animal that in Alpine countries would go white in winter. Ours in Ireland don’t go white because we haven’t got much snow in winter. The British hare is the European hare and has come from the south, rather than the north.
“An exhibit would be a good way of getting the Irish public to think about their own native species, and to get to do something for them.”
Showcasing diversity of life at Dublin Zoo
Dublin Zoo is, he says, quite mammal-heavy:
“We have a few birds and reptiles, but we completely lack fish and invertebrates. I would like to build an aquarium, and to have an invertebrate collection; even if it’s small it would be impactful.
“A capital city, particularly, needs to showcase the diversity of life, even if it’s only a couple of representative species in these various taxonomic groups. You can never show all groups, but you can at least give a good overview of what’s out there, and the stick insect is just as fascinating as an elephant.”
Visitor amenities are another area that needs attention.
“We have grown very quickly, over the last decade in particular, from about 600,000 visitors a year to 1.25 million. Our visitor amenities haven’t quite kept pace. Our restaurant and gift shop are relatively small for the number of visitors coming through, so that needs to improve.
“We need to look after our visitors in the best possible way.”
Thought leadership
The third strategic objective concerns thought leadership:
“It’s about raising our voices in the conservation choir, and, again, about our position here in Ireland, in Dublin, and our convening power as a zoo.
“People like us; people want to come to us. We can use that to enter the debate about conservation and conservation planning, be it by hosting conservation lectures every month, which I would like to do, or by hosting an annual gala dinner to raise the profile of conservation in Ireland, and of the zoo itself.”
What I want to do in terms of conservation here is conservation status assessment, conservation planning, and conservation action; all three combined under one roof
“It is also about influencing government policy here in Ireland, on native species, conservation, climate change and so on. We should not just be doing social media about the animals here but should align our social media calendar to the international conservation and climate change event calendar.
“What I want to do in terms of conservation here is conservation status assessment, conservation planning, and conservation action; all three combined under one roof. We can influence government policy by writing good conservation plans for species and their habitats, and getting the government to sign up to them.”
Dublin Zoo and collaboration
Zoos have the expertise, the long-term vision and the sheer tenacity to do this, says Schwitzer:
“For many species, there is no champion. Not only the invertebrates, but there are also lots of rodents and lots of marine animals that are very little known, and we don’t keep these species in our zoo. I think we nevertheless have a duty to fight for all species.
“Zoos can bring that expertise and that interest to the table. We have nerds among our staff, people who are really interested in one particular taxonomic group, or one particular species, whatever it may be. These people can make a huge difference.”
“I want to input into red listing, into conservation planning, and, of course, into conservation action.”
“We have already started to get in touch with our national parks, wildlife services and the government agencies responsible for conservation. It is about collaborating with the conservation community rather than cherry-picking, as perhaps people have done in the past.
“It’s sexy to do a conservation action plan for gorillas, but there are lots of people who are better placed to do it, and lots of field conservationists working with gorillas, whereas there are other species where that isn’t the case, and maybe we can make a bigger difference there.”
Discovery & learning
Strategic goal four is all about discovery and learning.
“We have very nice facilities here at Dublin Zoo already that were built in 2018: a modern lecture theatre, classrooms for school groups. I want to make more use of them and ramp up learner numbers per year, and do more on the higher education front.”
“At the moment we do a lot of primary and secondary, but we don’t really do much third-level education.
“Again, I’m using Bristol Zoo as an example, where we very successfully partnered over the years with three local universities. When I left Bristol Zoo, we had six degree courses and more than 200 students permanently on-site during term time. It was really a mini university.
“While the tuition fee system is different here, we need to see what we can do with local universities. That’s something we want to explore over the next couple of months.”
Education at Dublin Zoo
The zoo hasn’t yet had an opportunity to do this, simply because COVID meant that many courses were taking place online.
“I want face-to-face meetings with the heads of department and vice-chancellors at the university to see what the appetite would be for Dublin Zoo to become a partner on some of these courses, or to invent courses.”
“At Bristol, we started with a foundation degree in integrated wildlife conservation in the academic year 2009-10. The first cohort was 12 students because no one knew what it was yet. The following year we had twice as many, and then it became oversubscribed very quickly, to the extent that the university then said, ‘Let’s do a Master’s course and a BSC.’
“Students like to be in a zoo on campus, rather than in a normal university. I’d like to see how far we can take that here. We’ll see if we can convince Trinity College, University College, Dublin, and maybe even Queens University Belfast.”
Sustainability is key
The fifth strategic goal is sustainability:
“Sustainability is just as important as conservation,” he says. “We started on conservation and ended on sustainability deliberately. It’s all one cycle really.
“We have a journey ahead of us, and there is a lot of potential. We could have a biomass boiler, and burn the poo that the animals produce to make energy. Marwell Zoo has led the way on that over the last two years.”
“We could plaster the place with solar panels. We could have a wind turbine. Not in the zoo, because Phoenix Park is a national monument, but why not buy a big wind turbine in an offshore field?
“We want to explore all of these things. We need to come up with a good sustainability strategy. The 10-year strategic plan is a strategic vision. It doesn’t have the detail needed to explain exactly what we’re going to do.
“For that, I need to employ the help of our sustainability partners, such as SSE Airtricity, Ireland’s largest provider of green energy, with whom we have been working for a number of years now. We will probably also employ a sustainability officer to put together a strategy that we can then implement.”
Dublin Zoo leads people on a journey
It is not, he adds, just about reducing resource use and waste:
“It is equally about telling the story about our journey, to try and convince more people to do the same, to come on that journey. We can be open and honest. We can say, ‘We haven’t yet done our share and we need to do better on these things. But we need to do it and we want to do it with you guys.’
“We want our 1.25 million visitors to become part of that joint force for sustainability and for conservation as well.
“Everybody just needs to do a little bit more. If we can lead on that with Dublin Zoo, if we can get at least some of our visitors to do something, then I’ll be a happy man when I retire.”
All images courtesy of Dublin Zoo
