SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The $7.5 million Animal Health Center has started operations at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.
Officials marked the occasion with a formal opening ceremony late Tuesday morning. The event took place on the grounds of a bustling Rosamond Gifford Zoo, which was full of parents and children on a sun-filled, spring break day.
The new Animal Health Center “allows us to keep our accreditation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums,” Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said in his remarks at the event. “When we are accredited, what it allows us to do for the kids … it allows us the responsibility to host some of the coolest animals in the country.”
The Animal Health Center will allow the Rosamond Gifford Zoo to treat larger animals and to keep its partnership with Cornell University to conduct research and development and to train “the workforce of tomorrow” in this space, the county executive noted.
The Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo contributed just over $1 million in equipment for the facility.