October 16, 2-3: Author Talk with Sandra Bonura

Belle Benchley was hired out of desperation, but she led with defiance. She navigated the San Diego Zoo through the brink of bankruptcy to become the world’s first female zoo director and her legacy changed the world. An outsider to the scientific establishment, she rejected Victorian cages and pioneered the open-air, moated enclosures we see in modern zoos today. She spent her days in the trenches, developing an intuitive sense for animal care that often baffled trained veterinarians. First, she saved the institution from collapse, then she built it into a global icon of conservation history.