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'Rhinogate' Distresses Mayor

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By STEVE ANDREWS

News Channel 8

Published: September 16, 2008

TAMPA - Mayor Pam Iorio said she wants to find out more about a now-defunct plan to hand over a baby rhinoceros from Lowry Park Zoo to a private exotic-animal park owned by the zoo's chief executive officer.

"I've not been aware of any of these agreements between Safari Wild and the zoo," Iorio said. "And I've really been distressed and very concerned."

The reason, Iorio said: The animals at the zoo belong to the city.

An 8 On Your Side investigation revealed that three white rhinoceroses were among animals from the nonprofit, tax-supported Lowry Park Zoo that were housed this year at Safari Wild, a for-profit park under development in rural Polk County by Lex Salisbury, the zoo's chief executive officer.

Two of the animals are female and the zoo thinks they are pregnant.

"Safari Wild is paying for all of their feed and care," Salisbury said during an interview in June, when 8 On Your Side first began asking questions about the rhinoceroses.

Lowry Park Zoo, he said then, would get the first offspring from those animals.

"Under the standard breeding loan terms," he said, "the second set of offspring would be Safari Wild's."

A third rhino born would go to Lowry Park Zoo, a fourth to Safari Wild, Salisbury said.

Salisbury declined a request for another interview, a zoo spokeswoman said, because his priority is to meet with the city and make himself available for auditors. The zoo has contracted for an independent audit of its transactions with Safari Wild to ensure nothing improper took place.

Last week, The Tampa Tribune reported the zoo built two barns on Safari Wild property as part of an agreement allowing the zoo use of Safari Wild land to give animals a needed break from life on display. The zoo's executive committee severed the agreement in June because of the perception of a conflict of interest.

The two female rhinos at Safari Wild have since been transferred to California centers.

The zoo probably won't know for sure whether the two are pregnant until this time next year, said Rachel Nelson, the zoo's director of public relations.

A rhino's gestation period is 16 to 18 months.

The California center will keep the first, third and fifth calves from the pair of rhinos, Nelson said. Lowry Park will receive the second, fourth and sixth.

Only 14,000 white rhinos are known to exist. The San Diego Zoological Society says the species is so rare no price tag can be placed on the animals.

The Lowry Park Zoological Society rents 56 acres of land from the city of Tampa for $100 a year. According to the agreement signed in 1988, the animals and their offspring are city property.

When Iorio cited this lease to Salisbury, she said he claimed he wasn't familiar with the document.

Salisbury told News Channel 8 he doesn't decide which animals land at Safari Wild. That is decided by a subordinate, the zoo's director of collections. Any transfer must then be approved by Fassil Gabremariam, the Lowry Park Zoological Society board chairman.

"Every zoo, every institution loans, trades with private and public institutions, all around America," Gabremariam said. "What makes this unusual, of course, is Lex happens to be the head of Lowry's institution, and we believe we have taken measures in the interim to build a firewall."

State records show Gabremariam sits on the board of the nonprofit Safari Wild Conservation Foundation.

Said Iorio, "In my view, there should be absolutely no connection between the zoo and Safari Wild."

She added, "I just don't know about this 'rhinogate,' but we need to find out more about it; we need to find out more about this entire Safari Wild situation."

Reporter Steve Andrews can be reached at (813) 221-5779 or sandrews@wfla.com.

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