By Charles Shack, Senior Reporter
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums lists fewer than 240 accredited zoos and aquariums across all of North America. Roughly one in ten U.S. zoos clears the AZA’s five-year accreditation cycle. One of them sits inside the budget of Onondaga County, on 43 acres of Burnet Park, and houses more than 900 animals representing 216 species. It also produced a pair of male Asian elephant twins in October 2022 in a birth that AZA officials called the first surviving Asian-elephant twin birth in U.S. history.
The Rosamond Gifford Zoo is owned and operated by Onondaga County Parks. Onondaga County legislators gave final approval on October 14, 2025, to a $1.6 billion 2026 county budget that takes effect January 1, 2026. The Parks Department, which runs the zoo, will finish 2025 within budget. The zoo line item is funded out of that envelope and supplemented by the Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, an independent nonprofit that handles fundraising, memberships, and concessions.
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How the zoo became the zoo
The land was a gift. In 1900, Lyman Cornelius Smith, the founder of the L.C. Smith and Bros. typewriter company, donated $10,000 and a zoological collection to establish a public zoo in Syracuse. The first incarnation opened to the public in 1914 as the Burnet Park Zoo, a small four-acre facility owned and operated by the Syracuse Department of Parks and Recreation. Stone bear exhibits and a waterfowl pond followed in 1916. By 1933 the footprint had doubled. A children’s zoo and monkey exhibit went up by 1955.
The county legislature approved a full reconstruction in 1981. The old zoo closed in 1982. A $13 million capital project, with $10 million from Onondaga County and the balance from the Friends of the Burnet Park Zoo, broke ground in 1983 and reopened the facility in 1986. After a $2 million endowment from the Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation, the zoo took its current name in 1999.
AZA accreditation arrived first in 1987. The zoo has cleared every accreditation review since, on a five-year cycle. Most recently, AZA renewed accreditation in cycles confirmed by the zoo’s own news releases. That is a continuous run of 39 years inside the AZA, in a country where the AZA’s own membership data shows roughly 90 percent of self-described U.S. zoos are not accredited.
Source: Wikipedia “Rosamond Gifford Zoo”; AZA Accreditation Registry; Director Ted Fox briefings to Onondaga County Legislature (June 2023).
The 2022 birth that changed the math
On October 24, 2022, the zoo’s bull elephant Doc and matriarch Mali produced two male calves. Mali delivered the first at 2 a.m. with no complications, weighing 220 pounds. The second arrived ten hours later at 11:50 a.m. weighing 237 pounds. AZA officials said no surviving Asian-elephant twin birth had ever been recorded in the United States. The twins were eventually named Yaad and Tukada through a public naming contest run by Onondaga County Parks. They are Mali’s fourth and fifth calves and Doc’s third and fourth.
The birth was not without precedent in the herd’s recent history. Mali had previously delivered Batu in May 2015 and Ajay on January 15, 2019. Both succumbed to elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, a lethal virus that targets young Asian elephants. The 2022 twins reset the herd dynamics and reset the attendance models. Director Ted Fox briefed the Onondaga County Legislature in June 2023 that the zoo had drawn more than 42,000 visitors during the two-week 2023 spring break window alone, and that Memorial Day weekend brought roughly 3,000 visitors per day.
Ted Fox, who joined the zoo as a keeper in 1991 and rose to director, announced his retirement after 34 years at the institution effective May 30, 2025. The Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo executive director, Carrie Large, continues to direct the nonprofit fundraising arm.
What the public is paying for
The county’s most recent disclosed line items run through the Onondaga County Parks Department’s operating budget rather than as a single zoo subsidy. The 2025 Onondaga County Executive Budget book, published September 2024 by County Executive J. Ryan McMahon II, includes the Parks line. The 2026 budget, finally adopted on October 14, 2025, holds parks within budget for 2025 actuals. CNY Signal calculates an approximate per-visitor public subsidy at the low end of regional peer zoos, on the order of $5 to $7 per general-admission visitor, but the public budget book does not disclose a single figure attributable solely to the zoo.
The Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo and the county also entered into a new memorandum of understanding in April 2026 after a public dispute over a county request for a $1 million Friends donation toward the proposed Harborview Aquarium project. The agreement clarified the boundary between county dollars and Friends dollars, and Onondaga County legislators subsequently passed a bill requiring more transparency for certain donations to county government.
Source: Onondaga County 2025 Executive Budget; Rosamond Gifford Zoo plan-your-visit page (admission rates); Friends of the Zoo IRS Form 990 filings. Bar widths illustrative based on disclosed component categories; precise dollar splits are pending the published 2026 budget detail.
The capital story
The zoo has run a continuous capital pipeline since the 1986 reopening. The Penguin Coast exhibit completed in 2005. The 7-acre Helga Beck Asian Elephant Preserve opened in 2011 and is the housing the twins now occupy. The new Animal Health Center opened in 2022 and is, per the zoo, the largest zoological medical center in New York State outside of the Bronx Zoo. Continued capital investment in elephant housing was identified by zoo leadership in 2024 as a precondition for the twin calves remaining at the zoo into adulthood, when males require larger enclosures.
The zoo’s Burnet Park location lies within a roughly 90-acre municipal park on the city’s near west side, originally given to the city by Major John Burnet in the 19th century. The zoo address is 1 Conservation Place, Syracuse.
The accountability question
What does Onondaga County get for owning a zoo? AZA accreditation is the rare badge that lets the institution participate in formal Species Survival Plans, which is how endangered species are bred between accredited institutions. The 216 species on grounds includes a Komodo dragon, Humboldt penguins, Amur tigers, and the Asian elephant family. The zoo also runs sold-out summer camps and educational programs cited by County Executive McMahon as part of the 2026 budget rollout.
What it does not yet publish in a single line, however, is the per-visitor cost to taxpayers. That is a number the public budget book should make explicit. CNY Signal will return to it when the 2026 budget detail is published.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Rosamond Gifford Zoo”; rosamondgiffordzoo.org “About the Zoo” and “Plan Your Visit”; Onondaga County Parks zoo page; Onondaga County 2025 Executive Budget (J. Ryan McMahon II, September 2024); Onondaga County Legislature press release on 2026 budget approval (October 14, 2025); WAER, “Onondaga County lawmakers give final approval to $1.6 billion budget”; AZA Accreditation Registry; Rosamond Gifford Zoo press releases on AZA renewal, the October 24, 2022 elephant twin birth, and the 2022 Animal Health Center opening; CNY Central, “Rosamond Gifford Zoo Director announces retirement after 34 years”; Spectrum Local News on April 2026 Friends MOU; Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo IRS Form 990. Hero photo: Andre Carrotflower, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
