Another year passes yet the song remains the same as the Jackson Zoo continues to shrink. Inventory reports show the Jackson Zoo only has 114 animals, a third of what it was eight years ago.
The zoo enjoyed a collection of 338 animals in 2018.
Unfortunately, as the zoo fell on hard times, the collection shrank as well. The Jackson Zoo only has 114 animals today, a third of what it was eight years earlier. The zoo's animal population thus fell by 2/3 in less than eight years with nary a peep out of the Lumumba administration or the Jackson City Council.
The collection seems even smaller when birds are separated from the population. The collection has 33 birds. The Avian collection is thus a 30% of the total population. The zoo's inventory had 100 birds in 2018, 30% of the collection.
The Jackson Zoo only has 19 employees, including seven Zookeepers:
7 comments:
Please just close it and let's forget about it. So many other more important issues.
The zoo used to be a joke. Now it is a shame. Ignorant Pride prevents Jacksonians from letting it go. But any other zoo anywhere in the world is better. Now it is just a blighted shame. Unfortunately, Jacksonians are the type who are never ashamed.
The Jackson Zoo shrinking isn’t the story—it’s the warning light on the dashboard.
Because here’s the reality people don’t want to say out loud: metro areas either grow together… or they decline together.
Across the country, Sun Belt metros—Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville—aren’t just ‘lucky.’ They’re deliberately growing. In fact, large Sun Belt metros accounted for nearly half of all U.S. population growth in recent years.
And it’s not just growth—it’s where that growth is happening. The fastest gains are happening across entire metro areas, especially in the suburbs and outer counties.
Translation: those places didn’t abandon their core cities—they built ecosystems where the city and suburbs rise together.
Now here’s the uncomfortable part for folks who think living in Madison or Rankin County puts them on an island:
Suburbs don’t outrun decline—they absorb it.
National data shows poverty, population shifts, and economic strain have increasingly spread into the suburbs, not stayed contained in city centers.
And in most metros, suburban growth only works when the core city is still functioning as an anchor—jobs, culture, events, identity. When that weakens, the whole metro starts to hollow out from the inside.
So when the zoo shrinks… when downtown struggles… when investment dries up—that’s not “Jackson’s problem.”
That’s the region’s future knocking.
Meanwhile, our young people are making a different calculation. They’re not just leaving for jobs—they’re leaving for places that feel like they’re building something. Dallas. Houston. Nashville. Atlanta. Birmingham. Even smaller metros that are actually trying.
So what’s the plan here?
Are we going to invest in the kinds of things that make a metro competitive again—attractions, infrastructure, events, quality of life?
Or are we just going to keep pretending the suburbs will stay insulated while the core city slowly erodes?
Because that’s not how this works. Not anywhere in the country.
You don’t get a thriving suburb attached to a declining city.
You just get a slower version of the same decline
Move the Damn Zoo
SHUT IT DOWN and save the poor animals!
That's good news for animals.
Is this your way-too-long way of saying Jackson needs to keep the zoo?
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