Toledo Zoo director announces retirement

Toledo Zoo executive director Anne Baker outside Nature's Neighborhood, one of her favorite habitats at the zoo. THE BLADE/LORI KING Enlarge | Photo Reprints

The Toledo Zoo’s executive director plans to retire by year’s end after six years as the 112-year-old institution’s leader.

Anne Baker, a 64-year-old PhD primatologist, announced her retirement to the zoo’s employees Wednesday. She will stay on with the zoo while the board finds her replacement, she told The Blade.

The zoo is nearing the construction phase for the last project under her leadership, a $25 million renovation of the aquarium expected to reopen in 2015, so it will be a good time for the zoo’s seventh executive director to assume the role, Ms. Baker said. And she said she is looking forward to moving with her husband, a conservation scientist and population geneticist, to Maine, where they have a home.

“It will be good to have some new energy come in,” said Ms. Baker, who hopes to do some consulting work on zoo or conservation projects.

Milestone award winners from left; Betsy Brady, Anne Baker, Mari Davies, pose Tuesday, March 23, 2010, at the SeaGate Centre in Toledo, Ohio. THE BLADE Enlarge | Photo Reprints

“You can look at it as leaving something or going toward something,” she added. “I love the zoo. I love my zoo. I love our zoo.”

Ms. Baker said her stay at the Toledo Zoo’s helm lasted two to three years longer than she originally expected when she left as executive director of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, N.Y.

“I was having such a good time,” Ms. Baker said. “I still do love what I do.”

In 2006, Ms. Baker became the Toledo Zoo’s first female chief after the sudden retirement of William Dennler, a 24-year zoo leader. Controversy then had surrounded Mr. Dennler’s firing of zoo veterinarian Tim Reichard.