Volume 1, No. 17. September 21, 2001
(Photo of a stuffed tiger in the operating room San Diego Wild Animal Park's new hospital. Photo courtesy of the San Diego Zoological Society)
It's a
medical center!
The San Diego Wild Animal Park in California announces
the arrival of the Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center, September 18, 2001.
Measurements: 64,000 square feet (19,394 square meters) on a 10-acre site, 34,000
square feet (10,303 square meters) devoted to laboratories, offices and treatment
rooms, and 29,000 square feet (8,788 square meters) devoted to outside pens,
aviaries and sun rooms for patients. Delivered by Tucker-Sadler and Associates
(architects) and ED2 International (scientific advisors).
Yes, the Zoological Society of San Diego is proud of its new veterinary hospital,
named for philanthropist Paul Harter, one of the center's primary donors. David
Rice, director of architecture and planning for the Society (which also runs
the San Diego Zoo) boasts that the $20 million Harter Center is "the most sophisticated
facility in the world," unequaled in size and cost among wild animal hospitals.
Contributors were given behind-the-scenes tours back in March (the zoo broke
ground on the structure October 29, 1998), and similar tours were offered the
public on August 27.
But how does anyone celebrate the opening of their new office space? That's
right: by moving in. Rather than bother over ceremony, the hospital staff spent
Tuesday, the day the center officially opened, moving in and unpacking boxes.
The first patients will be treated there in the next couple of weeks.
We can imagine that those patients will appreciate, as best any patient can,
the new hospital. The Harter Center replaces a 1969 hospital that had only two
treatment rooms and "beds" for 100 animals. The Harter can serve 3,200 animals,
treat animals as large as a 2,000 pound (900-kilogram) giant eland and X-ray
a 550-pound (248-kilogram) gorilla. The hospital also has a mechanical overhead
hoist to off-load anesthetized patients and move them from surgery to recovery
rooms, a freezer that can store serum and tissue samples at minus-85 Celsius
(minus-121 Fahrenheit) and built-in video cameras to monitor procedures and
patients in their recovery rooms. The hospital will also become the site of
University of California-Davis' three year veterinarian residency program.