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A Dane County review of the work environment at the Vilas Zoo found a “predominant theme” of “toxicity” that includes racist and sexist comments, a lack of employees of color, an inadequate animal welfare system and management favoritism toward certain employees.
But the two-week review places the blame on certain staff members for creating an “Us vs. Them” mentality toward management and doesn’t specify whether staff or management used racist or sexist language.
The release of the review’s findings and recommendations comes a day before the County Board is set to consider commissioning an independent review of management at the zoo after the Wisconsin State Journal reported on allegations of racism, discrimination and animal neglect by the zoo’s only Black zookeepers, who resigned.
In a sharply worded memo Wednesday, County Executive Joe Parisi said newly elected County Board Chair Patrick Miles set an “adversarial tone” in a memo to supervisors last week calling for an independent probe of the zoo, a potential analysis of the county’s Office of Equity and Inclusion and ensuring that employees don’t face discrimination from management. Miles “asserted, without evidence, that county managers act discriminatorily and subjectively toward our employees,” Parisi said.
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In response, Miles said Parisi “made an accusation without evidence,” explaining that his statement was “about making sure the system is designed around protecting our employees.”
Parisi acknowledged that the report by county investigators showed the zoo had “room for improvement” with “both managers and certain members of the zoo’s workforce.”
“There will be job coaching, professional development and in some cases a need for improvement plans,” Parisi said. “It’s quite clear from employee interviews that some are perpetuating divisiveness at the zoo.”
The report, completed by two county civil servants, Kabura Mukasa and Carrie Braxton, both of whom are Black, detailed dozens of findings and suggested improvements for staff and management at the zoo.
Investigators said managers appear to favor some staff over others in job assignments. They also don’t include zookeeper input on animal welfare decisions and should interact with guests at the zoo more, make more of an effort to retain and recruit people of color and respond more quickly to correspondence from zoo employees.
The report included ample findings and suggestions regarding zoo staff as well.
Zoo staff too often gossip and slander managers and other employees, the report said. Staff make new employees feel unwelcome and have a “misconception” that they are disciplined unequally, it added.
On animal welfare, the zoo has a “conflict of interest” on its animal welfare committee, which has oversight over the care of animals, according to the report. Those who head the committee are “also the decision-makers who have final say on what can and cannot be done for the welfare of the animals.” People have also left the committee because they feel they are not being listened to, the report found.
Investigators recommend that the zoo research how other zoos have determined who gets to lead animal welfare committees.
In interviews with the Wisconsin State Journal, former and current zookeepers said the actions of management led to the deaths of some animals. Those incidents include a penguin that was decapitated by a raccoon, a capybara that fell into a pool during sedation and died the next day, and a hornbill that died and got partially eaten by a meerkat.
In its finding regarding racism, investigators wrote that “managers and/or staff exhibit micro-aggressions” and make “insensitive, sexist and racist comments.”
To ameliorate those issues, the zoo’s Diversity, Equity, Access and Inclusion committee will partner with the county’s Office of Equity and Inclusion in an effort to make the zoo’s diversity policies more effective. The county also offered to provide zoo staff and management with training and coaching.
Yet the report had its harshest words for the county workers’ union, Employee Group 65. Staff felt poorly represented by the union and leadership promoted a “divisive, disrespectful, disparaging, acrimonious tone and manner of the communications toward management,” the report said. Some staff had stopped paying dues to the union or are afraid to do so because of retaliation, the report stated.
A representative for the union had not responded to a request for comment.
Not the last word
County supervisors still plan to discuss an independent investigation of the zoo at the board’s executive committee Thursday evening.
Miles said supervisors need to explore whether the county’s probe was sufficient. Potential options include a peer review of the report, an operational audit or hiring a retired county judge who can review the facts impartially.
“The bottom line is I think public trust in one of our valued services, that being the zoo, has been undermined,” Miles said. “My personal opinion is, in large part, management and staff at the zoo are all high-quality people doing what they think is best. That doesn’t mean I don’t think there are problems, and those are things we should explore.”
In Parisi’s memo, the county executive offered a forceful defense of the Office of Equity and Inclusion. Staff there immediately started an investigation of the zoo following the resignation of its two Black zookeepers, Parisi said.
“Two women of color, Dane County civil servants, spent weeks exploring the concerns raised in those exit interviews,” Parisi wrote. “Suggestions their work could be done by others differently or better, dismisses their work, questions their professionalism and is inherently an example of an implicit bias.”
Art of the Everyday: A recap of April in photos from Wisconsin State Journal photographers

Dancers perform during the 2022 Madison College Spring Pow Wow presented by the college’s Native American Student Association on the campus in Madison, Wis. Saturday, April 23, 2022. This year’s event recognized the 30th anniversary of the association and honored the heritage and cultures of the Ho Chunk, Menominee, Munsee, Ojibwe, Oneida and Potawatomi nations. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Mary Frantz, third from right, who turns 99 on Sunday, is serenaded with “Happy Birthday” by friends she walks with weekly — from left, Kathy Converse, Barbara Chatterton Frye, Mary Somers, Deesa Pence and Nancy Schraufnagel — at Vilas Park in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, April 27, 2022. The group, all members of the Prairie Unitarian Universalist Society who started walking during the pandemic as a way to be together, had homemade blueberry muffins and a gift for Frantz before hitting the trail. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

As high winds roil the waters of Lake Mendota, members of the Wisconsin Sailing Team and other participants in a Midwest Collegiate Sailing Association qualifier event prepare their crafts for competition on the campus of UW-Madison in Madison, Wis., Friday, April 8, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Visitors to the MacKenzie Center take a horse drawn wagon ride during the Maple Syrup Festival in Poynette, Wis., Saturday, April 2, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

Madison Police Mounted Patrol Academy members Rebecca Holmquest, right, gets Dr. B, a 12-year-old Shire, to smile, with Liz Erickson, riding Torres, a 16-year-old Friesian, during a break from training at The Horse First Farm in Brooklyn, Wis., Thursday, April 14, 2022. The five new part-time riders with the Madison Police Mounted Patrol, who are finishing up a four week training course, will join two part-time and two full-time members of the unit. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Cecilia Ford of 360 Wisconsin uses a viewing scope to survey an Earth Day rally and march on Library Mall in Madison, Wis. Friday, April 22, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Stormy Gaylord is fitted for the Priestess Cassandra costume, designed by David Quinn, by artistic director Lisa Thurrell at Kanopy Dance in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, April 13, 2022. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Felix Harmon rollerblades down the sidewalk with his mom Jocelyn Harmon, not pictured, along East Dayton Street in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 19, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

Cheyenne Peloquin, center, with Chippewa Valley Technical College, uses a mannequin head to create a short razor haircut during a cosmetology competition at SkillsUSA Wisconsin at Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Ingrid Andersson takes the blood pressure of Naomi Takahashi during an appointment at Andersson’s home office in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Ruby Takahashi, 3, and Christopher Olson sit in on the appointment. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

Therapist Frances Violante, left, works with Brody Koslowski, center, while he plays with his brother Colton at the Koslowski’s home in DeForest, Wis., Tuesday, April 12, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

Rod McLean, 81, has bibs from 368 races he’s run since 1992 displayed on the wall in a bedroom at his home in Monona, Wis., Friday, April 29, 2022. McLean, who will participate in his 26th Crazylegs Run, needs 1.5-miles to reach 24,901.4 miles, which happens to be the circumference of the earth. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Band director Will Janssen conducts John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” during rehearsal at Mount Horeb High School in Mount Horeb, Wis., Tuesday, April 26, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

UW-Madison students with Pitches and Notes, a treble-voiced a cappella group, including Leah Terry, front, Ellie Fricker, right, and Alyssa Bruckert, left, use random props as microphones as they rehearse at the UW Student Activities Center on East Campus Mall in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 12, 2022. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Mount Horeb Choir director Diane Dangerfield leads rehearsal at Mount Horeb High School in Mount Horeb, Wis., Tuesday, April 26, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

UW-Madison students Maitreyee Marathe, front, a PhD student in electrical engineering, and, from left, Brittany Bondi, a second-year graduate student in environment and resources, Stephanie Bradshaw, a PhD student in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, and Savannah Ahnen, a sophomore in computer science and electrical engineering, install an electric Little Free Library that functions as a solar-powered phone charging kiosk at Lisa Link Peace Park on State Street in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Allen Centennial Garden horticulturalist Ryan Dostal clears unwanted vegetation from from a bed beneath a magnolia tree as he assists volunteers with a clean-up effort to the conservancy on the campus of UW-Madison in Madison, Wis. Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Workers at the garden are preparing the grounds for this season’s new displays of plants and flowers, which will be on display as part of the gardens’ “Abundant Harvest” theme featuring edible ornamentals. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

A cyclist rides past a pair of sandhill cranes at the UW Arboretum in Madison, Wis., Thursday, April 28, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

While sunny skies and slightly warmer temperatures offer a hint toward spring, a pair of snowmen created from the previous day’s snowfall add a wintry touch to Amy Utzig and Jen Schutz’s run along the shoreline of Monona Bay near Brittingham Park in Madison, Wis., Friday, April 1, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Tom Sarbacker carries a bucket of feed to his young cows at his farm, Fischerdale Holsteins, in Paoli, Wis., Monday, April 18, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL

Chris Ayers of Madison Window Cleaning improves the view of the Wisconsin State Capitol during a seasonal cleaning effort of the panes of the AC Hotel in Madison, Wis., Monday, April 11, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

With spring temperatures starting to take hold in the area, Chris Wiesneski and his English shepherd, Patrick, are reflected in the waters of a former hockey rink during a walk through Vilas Park in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Volunteers and staff from the Ice Age Trail Alliance’s Lodi Valley and Dane County Chapters build a 371-foot boardwalk over an area of the Lodi Marsh segment of the Ice Age Trail in Lodi, Wis., Friday, April 8, 2022. AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

UW Band director Corey Pompey leads his musicians during the Varsity Band Concert at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis. Friday, April 22, 2022. JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL