The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society (NYZS), the organization is now led by President and CEO, Monica P. Medina, who replaced long time President and CEO Cristián Samper in 2023. WCS manages four New York City wildlife parks in addition to the Bronx Zoo: the Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. Together these parks receive 4 million visitors per year. All of the New York City facilities are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
History
Founding
The Wildlife Conservation Society was originally chartered by the state of New York on April 26, 1895. Then known as the New York Zoological (also reported as "Zoölogical") Society, the organization embraced a mandate to advance native wildlife conservation, promote the study of zoology, and create a first-class zoological park that would be free to the public. Its name was changed to the Wildlife Conservation Society in 1993. Andrew H. Green, was the first president of the society, but was replaced by Levi P Morton after Green resigned due to declining health. Henry Fairfield Osborn, who was the curator of the American Museum of Natural History and the founder of the American Eugenics Society, was Morton's successor. Madison Grant, popular eugenicist and author of The Passing of The Great Race, acted as the society's secretary and the chairman of the executive committee. William Temple Hornaday operated as the founding Director and General Curator of the park itself. Together, these leaders wrote hundreds of works promoting preservationist values. Their writings and arguments were foundational for conservation, but notably partially motivated by racial discrimination, hyper masculinity, and an association between protecting the nation's wildlife and the nation's white population.
Other notable figures were also involved in the Society's creation including George Bird Grinnell, founder of the Audubon Society and editor of Forest and Stream Magazine and members of the Boone and Crockett Club.
The Bronx Zoo (formerly the New York Zoological Park) was designed along the lines of other cultural institutions in New York City, such as the American Museum of Natural History. The city provided the land for the new zoo and some funding for buildings and annual operating costs. WCS raised most of the funds for construction and operations from a private donors, and selected the scientific and administrative personnel. Hornaday's tenure was very significant for conservation, but he encountered controversy after the exhibiting Ota Benga, a Mbuti (Congo pygmy) man.
Work
In the late nineteenth century William Temple Hornaday, then director of the New York Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo), carried out a direct-mail survey of wildlife conditions through the United States, and publicized the decline of birds and mammals in the organization's annual reports. He was a prolific writer who published The Extermination of the American Bison and Our Vanishing Wildlife: It's Extermination and Preservation among many other texts. Our Vanishing Wildlife, in particular, revealed an association between species extinction and the decline of the white race in America.
In 1897 Hornaday also hired field researcher Andrew J. Stone to survey the condition of wildlife in the territory of Alaska. On the basis of these studies, Hornaday led the campaign for new laws to protect the wildlife there and the United States as a whole. In 1901, a small herd of American Bison were gathered in a 20-acre meadow just off what is now the Pelham Parkway roadway. Starting in 1905, Hornaday led a national campaign to reintroduce the almost extinct bison to government sponsored refuges. Hornaday, Theodore Roosevelt and others formed the American Bison Society in 1905. The Bronx Zoo sent 15 bison to Wichita Reserve in 1907 and additional bison in later years. The saving of this uniquely American symbol is one of the great success stories in the history of wildlife conservation. Hornaday campaigned for wildlife protection throughout his thirty years as director of the Bronx Zoo. Beginning in 1906, Hornaday featured Ota Benga, a member of the Mbuti from the Congo, in a zoo exhibit. In July 2020, the Wildlife Conservation Society apologized.