MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A controversial decision is looming at Zoo Miami as commissioners are set to vote later this week on whether to extend the lease agreement for the park Miami Wilds — and the zoo’s most well-known human face is taking the rare step to publicly denounce the plan.
The park is on Zoo Miami property, and zoo communications director Ron Magill is speaking out, saying as a private citizen, he cannot support the park.
Essentially, because of a federal lawsuit, the county is having to amend its lease with Miami Wilds, but environmentalists, like Magill, want the entire thing thrown out.
“We are supposed to be a conservation organization and you’re not trying to protect one of the most critically endangered habitats, critically endangered species in your own backyard? That’s hypocrisy,” said Magill.
He is hoping commissioners will put an end to the Miami Wilds project.
“Any way you look at this, it is not good -- not just for the endangered species and the natural habitat, but for the families,” Magill said. “It’s just not the right place.”
Miami Wilds was conceived by the county in the late 90′s and early 2000′s as an entertainment park meant to boost economic development in southwest Miami-Dade County, and bring even more people to the zoo.
Paul Lambert is one of the developers managing the project, and he said the plan for the 27-and-a-half acres of land on Zoo Miami property is to build a water park and dining and entertainment area, all on what is currently the zoo’s northwest parking lot.
“It was a much larger project initially, but (we) have scaled it back in a way to avoid any impacts on the natural areas,” said Lambert.
In 2006, voters approved a referendum on the project, but it has been delayed a number of times, most recently by several lawsuits.
And while the developers insist they’ll be causing no environmental harm, Magill and other conservationists aren’t convinced, saying the plans encroach even further on the already threatened Pine Rocklands, which are home to many endangered species.
“We’ve started to make progress, we’re showing that things are working, that conservation is working,” said Magill. “This is going to be five steps backwards.”
Magill says the Florida bonneted bat would be particularly hurt by the development, and that the sky above the parking lot is the single most important foraging ground for them.
But Lambert said their studies don’t agree, and the true impact is being overblown.
“Yes, the bat does fly over the property, but the notion that this is bat-nirvana or bat-palooza, where the bat just feeds every night, the data doesn’t indicate that at all,” said Lambert.
A hotel was also supposed to be part of the project, but now the plan has been amended to put it outside of the zoo’s property, where Coast Guard housing currently exists.
The county is set to vote on the lease amendment on Wednesday.
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