After a globe-trotting career, both as a naval officer and in his profession of animal care, Jeffrey Mahon’s latest post offers a kind of homecoming.
Mahon, recently appointed as Honolulu Zoo director, spent 15 years in Hawaii, mainly while serving in the Navy reserve and earning his doctorate in zoology at the University of Hawaii.
Now 52, the Chicago native and Annapolis graduate retired with a commander’s rank in 2008.
His most recent work includes a stint running Underwater World in Singapore, a privately owned public aquarium, a job that also included responsibility for similar attractions in Thailand and China. There was the stop as curator and facilities manager of Underwater World Guam, too.
Most recently, he spent three years as director of exhibits and animal husband-ry at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Center in Virginia Beach.
Does it feel funny being a landlubber now, at a terrestrial zoo? Not really, Mahon said. Animals on land and sea have always been his fascination.
Married with two teenage children, he believes the travel has enriched family life as well.
"I think my kids have been wonderful throughout," he said. "Hopefully they’ve gained from the experience, all these different multicultural areas. That’s been a positive thing."
QUESTION: A lot of your academic background seems to be on the marine animals side. How does that figure into your work now?
ANSWER: I probably leaned a little more toward the aquatic side. Like I’ve said, taking care of animals is essentially the same above the water or below. I’ve had pets, I kept snakes when I was a little kid. I’ve had birds, in addition to keeping fish. So I’ve kind of had the gamut.
At first I kind of gravitated, because I’d done my research out at Coconut Island, focusing on reef fish. … I’ve always been interested in animals in general. In Chicago I had a basement full of fish tanks, in addition to the snakes out back, and the birds. So I was kind of an amateur zoologist from long ago. …
Here’s an interesting story: When I was 9 or 10 years old, my family traveled a lot during the summer; my parents both taught, so they had the summers off. So we had a trailer and traveled around.
Somewhere in Arizona, we were at a nature trail. I was always kind of wandering off. I said, "Oh, Mom, look at this pretty snake!" A red and yellow and black striped snake, a small snake along the edge of the road. I was pretty close to it, and I think my mom looked and screamed. It could have been a poisonous coral snake or there’s another one, a king snake, which looks very similar but the color is a different pattern. Age 9, I didn’t know.
Q: Your mother evidently despaired at dissuading you from your fascination with snakes?
A: She tolerated it. …
Q: How would you say your collected experience translates to this job?
A: It’s all been gaining experience, in animal husbandry, also management — that’s an important factor — and other things, like marketing and other important factors.
Q: When you applied, did you have any proposals for the Honolulu Zoo?
A: Right now I’m focusing; we have got a lot of projects that are already in the works. We’re doing some upgrades, some filtration systems. We have a new reptile and amphibian house that’s planned, and we want to make sure that gets done right. Those are kind of the priorities right now. …
I’ll take six months or so to try and look at it and try to come up with a long-term plan. But it’s a little early for that right now.
Q: So there is no master plan now?
A: We have a master plan, I think it goes to 2016. … We’ve already kind of deviated from it … you’ve got to adjust as necessary.
Q: How does the Honolulu Zoo fit within the current thinking about zoo design and concepts?
A: We have a unique location here, where the weather makes it conducive for a lot of tropical animals. So we focus on showing animals that do as well in this climate. Maybe we don’t do well as other mainland facilities, where they have cold winters. …
More generally I think zoos have a very important position. Conservation — a lot of species are endangered, and we spend a lot of money and a lot of effort trying to preserve species in the wild. …
We also do captive breeding. That’s an important thing. Some species are extinct in the wild and are kept alive just in zoos. For that purpose alone, I think zoos are very important.
But also, as the world becomes more urbanized, you’ve got kids growing up in different places; they never see wild animals in person. And just seeing them on TV or video isn’t quite the same. People always want to come to zoos and see the animals up close and personal. The idea is to make it as close as possible, being safe, and interactive. That’s one thing I’ve always tried to do at previous facilities, to make things interactive, get people involved as much as possible with the animals.
Q: Is there an example of any exhibits here that might be changed up?
A: In general, zoos just try to get away from the old-fashioned kind of cages to more open environments. And depending on the species, that’s sometimes easy, sometimes not. So we’re trying to put less of a barrier between a guest and the animal. …
There’s no barrier between us and the giraffes and the ostriches. There’d be a barrier between the tigers — some animals, you got to keep things safe. Staying safe, and minimizing the barriers.
We’re trying to upgrade; a lot of the bird exhibits have this heavy steel mesh, replacing that with a lighter, stronger, stainless-steel mesh. It theoretically disappears, and you can see the animals much better. Kind of things like that. Those are the kind of upgrades we’re working on.
Q: Has the work begun on that project?
A: It hasn’t started yet; I’m told we have the mesh on order, we’re supposed to get it soon.
Q: The birds won’t bang into it?
A: That’s actually one thing we need to be sure of, sometimes that is a problem. Maybe for the first couple of weeks you put some tape or something colorful on there so they don’t go into it. We have very knowledgeable, very experienced keepers, so they’ll be on top of those things. …
Q: The renovation of the zoo entrance was a big deal. Any improvements on that order coming?
A: Our reptile/amphibian house, that’s a major addition. We’re actually meeting with architects … to kind of work out what we want in the plans.
Q: Right now, where are they kept?
A: We have an old reptile house. So once we get our plans all firmed up — and right now we’re working on places to hold the animals — we’ll be tearing down the old reptile house and building a new one.
Q: Any garter snakes in there?
A: (Laughs.) They won’t let us keep garter snakes; the state of Hawaii is very picky on snakes we can keep.
Q: Any distinguishing characteristics of the facility you’re hoping to build?
A: We’re exploring a bunch of different ideas. … We want to show some interesting amphibians, different frogs that are interesting. We’re talking about having a dark area, night exhibit so you can have a reverse cycle. But like I said, we’re just in the idea phase.
Q: What’s the rough time frame for that?
A: We’re hoping to have the construction done 2015, 2016 at the latest.
Q: How do you view the job of marketing the zoo? What’s the balance between tourist zoo guests as opposed to local residents?
A: We want to make sure we attract the visitors, but we try to attract the residents, too. … We like to focus on all the different segments of our visitors. We’ll have to look at what’s the most efficient use of money … always looking at new (marketing) opportunities, the new social media is obviously a big thing we hopefully will take advantage of.
Q: Isn’t it a problem that people often don’t make repeat visits to the zoo?
A: We’ve got to make sure that things are constantly changing, something new to see.
Q: Any plans to change the kind of events scheduled at the zoo?
A: We just finished our Wildest Show in Town; every Wednesday we had a concert there. … If a program is popular and it doesn’t interfere with the animals’ health or welfare, we’ll continue with it. I see no reason to discontinue the programs. We may look at them and see if we can modify them, make them able to give our visitors a better experience.
Q: Are there any security vulnerabilities you may want to look at?
A: We’re having a problem with people breaking in. I”m not sure how long ago, people came in and someone cut a bunch of the fronts of the bird cages. I know that was a major concern. We tried to increase security around the area.
Q: What about the other direction? Animals getting out?
A: We’re accredited by the AZA, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which gives you strict rules on the size of the fence, what kind of fence. I was just reviewing a new guideline for the enclosures for lions and tigers. At first glance I’m pretty sure we meet them, although we have to get some clarification. …
They have strict rules on keeping the outer fences closed. You have an outer barrier and the animals are kept enclosed. So yes, we take that very seriously.
