In 1980, Zoos and Museums Received $9.5 Million—Adding to the U.S. National Debt

In 1980, the Department of Education’s then-Institute for Museum Services received $35,000 — $126,480 in 2022 — part of which was used to fly two zookeepers from California to attend a three-day elephant workshop in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was only a small portion of the $9.5 million the institute gave to zoos and museums that year, or $34.3 million in 2022 dollars. The funding came at a time when the federal government had a $74 billion budget deficit.

Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, gave the Institute for Museum Services a Golden Fleece award for this misuse of taxpayer funds.

For the three-day elephant workshop, two zookeepers from the Santa Barbara Zoo were sent to learn about “new techniques for handling and caring for elephants.” Forty elephant keepers from 13 states attended the conference.

Pandering to Pachyderms

In addition to the elephant workshop, federal funds were also used to send another senior animal keeper from the Santa Barbara Zoo to the National Conference of the American Association of Zookeepers in Montgomery, Alabama.

As Sen. Proxmire deftly recognized, some of the money didn’t go to help feed the animals or keep their doors open, which was what the Institute for Museum Services initially claimed the grants would be used for.

Instead, it went to an activity that should have been paid for by the zoo, if they really thought the conference would have been helpful. There is nothing wrong with sending professionals to educational conferences, but that luxury should be paid for by the institution, not by the taxpayers, Proxmire argued.

He refers to this as a “put the money on a stump and run” program, where the federal government throws money at a target with little indication of need, questionable purpose, and lax oversight.

As Proxmire notes, “It is one thing for the federal government to provide for the common defense, but it is quite another for it to pander to pachyderms.”

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