Before he showed me a photograph of himself with a dead body, before he encouraged two huge, growling lions—separated from us only by a chainlink fence—to jump at my bag as he held it over his head, before he cited If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss as his primary zoo training, Pat Dingle talked to me about the relationship between zoos and Las Vegas.
A retired homicide detective, military man, avid smoker of Camels and the director of the Southern Nevada Zoological Park, Dingle knows what he's talking about—if not from Dr. Seuss than from the 23 years he's been running the place. The conversation arose in response to a recent proposal before the City Council by Las Vegas residents Jim and Mona Sher to open a 250-acre "world class" zoo at Floyd Lamb State Park, with bonds secured by the city. In theory, the zoo could generate some money for Las Vegas and enable it to acquire the park from the state. City staff is researching the issue.
In the meantime, we have a zoo. A small, three-acre facility on North Rancho that not many residents know about, but a zoo nonetheless. It's done well for itself, considering it sits about seven miles from the wild, wooly and air-conditioned offerings on the Strip. The zoo attracts up to 60,000 visitors a year and has just begun a three-year expansion program that will add 35 more exhibits of rare and endangered species, reptiles and amphibians. So does the proposal for a world-class zoo threaten our homely yet charming little animal habitat? Not in the least.
When did you first hear about the prospect of the "world class zoo?"
About three minutes after the subject was raised at the City Council meeting.
What was your reaction?
Well, I have to preface it with this is the fourth one this year. Historically, there's two or three such proposals every year. Each one turns out to be a Micky Rooney/Judy Garland let's-put-on-a-show type scenario. They get a little press and you never hear any more about it.
So you're shrugging it off.
Oh, yeah. From what they presented to the council, it's just a totally false premise. It won't work.
So it's not an issue where you feel snubbed?
Oh, no, not at all. No, I wouldn't be involved in anything like that. The city doesn't fund us.
That's why I thought it was a little strange that they seem kind of ready to jump in and help these guys.
Well, they're not ready. They're just taking a look. I have faith that this City Council is bright enough not to get involved in something like that and put serious taxpayer money at risk. A big zoo won't work in Las Vegas. It's not the nature of this town, and I speak from 23 years of experience with this.
Didn't you at one point have land at Floyd Lamb State park?
The city did. I had a 250-acre lease for 99 years with the state of Nevada for a zoo out there. But even with that, my proposal wasn't a 250-acre zoo. My proposal was to create a huge cultural, recreational center for Southern Nevada, with a number of museums, a number of performing arts attractions, multifaceted—even wanted the various counties throughout Nevada to have their own facilities in this cultural center. … It takes a number of complimentary, enhancing facilities that draw different people, different interests to keep coming back. Kind of a Balboa Park for the 21st century. So a zoo would be a major component of that, but a zoo alone—all of our studies indicate it wouldn't work. So it turns out I was, ballpark, 50 years or so ahead of the rest of the town.
What happened with the land?
The city wanted it, and so they sued us here and threatened to close us for years, and other powers that be didn't want the zoo, didn't want anything like that anywhere. And all things combined, we just ran into walls everywhere. And they started throwing stones from on top of the walls, and ultimately we said the hell with it. So we turned it over to the city of Las Vegas. They forgave the city loan and paid our legal fees; altogether it was ballpark $150,000 in exchange for the lease that we had.
Is the main thing keeping Las Vegans from wanting a zoo the fact that they can go into air-conditioned casinos and see all of these animals?
No, locals don't go out to the Mandalay Bay and Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and the Flamingo and the MGM lion habitat, the Tropicana. That's primarily for tourists. They do get locals, of course, or locals will take guests from out of town. … That works as a tourist attraction, but none of those are stand-alone. None of those would work without the gaming, or without all the amenities that the hotel casinos have. This is just one more amenity to draw people to their property to gamble, play the slot machines on the way to the sharks. That's what makes that work.
Right. It's different to drive 20 miles out of town when it's 120 degrees.
Exactly. We know for a fact people don't go out when it's over 100—they do, but not in great numbers. They don't go out when it's over 100, they don't go out when it's under 50, they don't go out when the wind blows. Rain isn't a real concern. But these are just facts of life in Las Vegas. I say that as a 42-year resident. I know this town, and gambling is the number one recreation for local residents. They go into casinos, it's air-conditioned, there are theaters, they can have a snack or lunch. Gaming is the engine that runs this town.
Do prospective zoo owners ever come to you and consult?
A few have. Most of them don't have a clue what they're doing. It's an idea. Wherever they came from, there's a big zoo. And they scratch their heads: "Why don't we have a big zoo?" So it gets back to let's put on a show and have a big zoo. … Most of them are well-intentioned and well-meaning people, but they're absolutely clueless in what's a zoo, how does a zoo run, what's the nature of a zoo? It's kind of bizarre.
It's funny. If I were you, I'd be laughing.
Well, I'm trying not to. I'm trying to be respectful. But [covers his mouth with his hands and snickers] inside, you know, no I'm not. I would laugh sooner than I would cry.
It's nice that they want to give back to the community, but there are so many others things the community could use.
Oh, there's so many things, so many needs, and the casinos are not benevolent. Someone once explained to me years ago that Las Vegas was built on an entrepreneur mentality, and it's always been like that. You make it or you don't, you're on your own. There's not a lot of support, there's not a lot of infrastructure, Las Vegas is not warm and fuzzy. And we are the only successful zoo in the history of the state. There's been several other attempts over the last 40 years, but we're it. So I think we reflect reality in Las Vegas.
How is it that you've been successful while others have failed?
We're successful in that we're here. We have a lot of wonderful animals, we're developing more and more animals. We hit three major home runs in the last month with new animals that are coming in. They are an Indo-Chinese tiger, of which there are a couple hundred left on Earth, 60 in captivity. ... This is the elite of the zoo world. We already have gotten a Chinese alligator, a month and a half ago, there's about 300 left on Earth, 209 in captivity throughout the world. … The fact that we're now part of the Chinese alligator species survival program managed by the Bronx Zoo speaks a lot to our professionalism, our credibility, who we are, what we are. You don't put these animals in some little roadside attraction.
San Diego Zoo is giving us a pair of fossa; they're the largest predator on the island of Madagascar. They were first photographed in the wild about a year and a half ago. They've never been studied in the wild. There's less than 10 in this country. … We just built a new river otter exhibit a month and a half ago with two Canadian river otters that were rescued in the wild. There are no river otters in the United States. All the big zoos have a huge waiting list for them.
Is it your connections that have made this possible?
Oh, totally.
Because compared to San Diego, Chicago and the Bronx, this is a very small facility.
Yeah, but we're also quality. And I've demonstrated to my colleagues that we're able to do it, we're able to go the distance.
For more on the Southern Nevada Zoological Park, at 1775 N. Rancho Dr., call 648-5955.