Trouble at San Francisco Zoo Could Soon Lead to CEO’s Removal

Dissatisfaction with the San Francisco Zoo’s leadership appears to have hit a breaking point.

Embattled CEO Tanya Peterson, who has been under fire since questions about the facility’s safety and her ability to lead it began swirling in recent years, could face a vote to remove her next week, according to a union representative.

“The executive board [of the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society] is holding an emergency meeting on Tuesday next week where they are going to be discussing the removal of Tanya Peterson from the executive director role,” Corey Hallman of Teamsters Local Union 856, which represents about 100 zookeepers, dieticians, gardeners and other zoo workers, told KQED.

News of Peterson’s potential ouster was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle late Thursday.

A spokesperson for Peterson, who has helmed the organization for nearly 17 years, said the CEO wasn’t aware of a vote on her employment.

Instead, Peterson said she accepted the resignation last week of the board chair of the San Francisco Zoological Society, which runs the zoo.

On May 7, Peterson wrote in an email to chair Melinda Dunn and Mindy Henderson, another board member, that she had received Dunn’s written resignation.

“While you verbally proffered a different reason for your resignation, your written resignation states that it is because you no longer get along with me as CEO,” the email reads.

Henderson confirmed that she had received the message, but an email sent to board members on May 9 by attorney Christina Bouchot, who identifies herself as its human resources counsel, said that Dunn never submitted a formal resignation.

“I understand that Tanya has informed some of you that Melinda has resigned from the Board. However, this is incorrect for several important reasons,” the message from Bouchot reads.

Bouchot said that while Dunn did send some board members communication late last year discussing a possible “transition in leadership,” she never sent any resignation to Peterson, as required by the organization’s bylaws, and later followed up with a “clear decision to remain as chair.”

Peterson’s spokesperson said Bouchot was hired by Dunn hired and does not work for the zoo.

Dunn declined to comment on whether or not there is a vote next week, citing an employment matter.

But Hallman said the vote is coming. Since hearing of the meeting, he said, current and former employees and community organizations have begun a “grassroots movement” asking the board to remove Peterson after a few rough years for her and the zoo.

In December, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors requested an audit of the facility following a scathing report produced by the Animal Control and Welfare Commission, which found that it was “unsafe for visitors and animals.”

In April 2024, the union took a vote of no confidence in Peterson, passed by 93% of voting members, after news that a grizzly bear had briefly chased a zookeeper raised alarms in 2023.

Throughout the controversy, Peterson has been leading the charge to bring a pair of giant pandas to San Francisco in an effort to revive the zoo’s declining attendance and profitability.

Launched in partnership with then-Mayor London Breed last year, the $25 million plan to borrow the pair of pandas from China for three years is not a done deal, even though they’re expected to be on exhibit by next spring.

Mayor Daniel Lurie has been hesitant to promise their arrival since his election, and increasingly tense relations between the federal government and China could mean reversing course.

Whether the pandas arrive in San Francisco or whether Peterson will be around to welcome them is unknown.

“I’m just hopeful that the board makes the right decision,” Hallman told KQED. That, he said, would be “a change in leadership at the zoo and the removal of Tanya Peterson from her role as the executive director.”