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rsplatpc t1_j1x3lq1 wrote

Reply to comment by SpencerTheGreater in Was ZooLights worse this year than in the past? by Dukester1007

> Nah. It has to do with them trying to minimize impact to the animals

Nope, it's 100% because they don't have the budget to pay people and can't even afford to pay a trainer to train volunteers to put up lights.

Source = good friend works at the zoo in the budget department, their entire budget got totally annihilated during the pandemic and they have been scraping by since.

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ActuaryPersonal2378 t1_j1xne8o wrote

This and it’s an issue with government contracts. Since everything is run by the Zoo (instead of FONZ), they have to use companies approved by the federal government to run programs (I/e vendors for zoo lights)

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DCSubi t1_j20l8ug wrote

Not sure how accurate this is since the company/staff that FONZ contracted for zoo lights works in government buildings all over the city and just did the lighting at the White House holiday events. Presumably if the vendor and their staff are in the gov’s system to work in the White House, they’d be in the procurement system for the zoo.

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DCSubi t1_j20kues wrote

Volunteers didn’t put up the lights. A large lighting company would begin installing the holiday lights shortly after Halloween. The zoo owned some of the animal-themed light displays. But the 3rd party vendor installed everything. The vendor worked with FONZ staff. Source - a former event contractor involved with the event

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SpencerTheGreater t1_j1x7qxh wrote

I also have a source. It's because of the animals.

Why would they spend thousands of dollars on brand new lights instead of simply using the ones they already had?

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rsplatpc t1_j1x82r0 wrote

> Why would they spend thousands of dollars on brand new lights instead of simply using the ones they already had?

What?

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SpencerTheGreater t1_j1xbc2c wrote

They bought new lights to replace the old ones. Because the old ones were problematic for animals.

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rsplatpc t1_j1xbomu wrote

> They bought new lights to replace the old ones. Because the old ones were problematic for animals.

You know that is a FRACTION of the zoos budget right?

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SpencerTheGreater t1_j1xemw9 wrote

I mean, so is putting up the lights.

The largest problem was that it was causing issues for the animals. Especially the animal houses being open.

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