Zoo Chief’s Free Trip to Africa Probed

City Recreation and Parks officials confirmed Friday that they have launched an inquiry into Los Angeles Zoo Director Mark A. Goldstein’s recent all-expenses-paid trip to Africa, which he took with his wife while on the city payroll.

The inquiry, prompted by calls to a city ethics hot line, focuses on whether Goldstein violated city regulations prohibiting employees from conducting personal business on city time and on whether he misrepresented the trip to Botswana to get it approved.

City officials disclosed the inquiry in response to questions about the nature of Goldstein’s two-week trip from March 22 to April 2.

“There were many reasons for the trip that I believe are in keeping with the mission of what the zoo is,” Goldstein, 40, said in an interview.

Goldstein insisted that the trip was legitimate zoo-related business, saying he went at the request of the Glendale-based Gametrackers International tour company so he could learn about the animals of Africa, fraternize with other zoological experts and check out the quality of the firm’s expeditions so he could refer the company to Los Angeles Zoo patrons.

According to a document obtained by The Times, Goldstein requested--and received--approval for leave with pay “to attend an on-site familiarization trip on behalf of the Los Angeles Zoo in Botswana, Africa.”

City Department of Recreation and Parks officials are trying to determine if the trip amounts to personal business for Goldstein, who said Friday that he plans to take at least one more all-expenses-paid trip with the firm as part of a proposed program for Los Angeles Zoo patrons.

If it was personal business, Goldstein should have requested leave without pay, because his missing two weeks of work at his $116,448-a-year salary costs the city more than $4,000 in lost wages or work, Recreation and Parks officials said.

Jackie Tatum, general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, which oversees the zoo, has ordered Goldstein to submit a detailed explanation of his trip and to explain why he allowed a private, nonprofit fund-raising arm of the zoo to pay his $511 plane fare to New York to begin the African expedition.

“I’ve got to get all the information before I can comment,” said Tatum, who said she has yet to finish Goldstein’s written response. Asked why she approved the trip and is now second-guessing that approval, Tatum said: “My initial idea about it was that it was . . . in behalf of the zoo.”

Sources close to the inquiry said such “familiarization trips” are common among zoo officials. But such trips are usually taken on a zoo official’s own time since they involve the official’s relationship with a private tour company, sources said.

Goldstein would not disclose the names of several other zoo directors who also went on the trip.

The sources questioned the trip’s merit to the zoo, saying Gametrackers paid for Goldstein and his wife to spend 10 days at its camps because it wants the zoo director to recommend the company’s tours to patrons of the Los Angeles Zoological Society and then accompany them on trips as a tour guide.

“He misrepresented the case and said it was job-related, that he wanted to familiarize himself with African animals,” said one source, who requested anonymity. “We thought he was already familiar with them” when he was hired.

Goldstein said the trip was cleared in advance not only by Tatum but by the city attorney’s office, and that he provided them with his full itinerary. He would not release a copy of the itinerary, nor his report to Tatum.

Goldstein said it was his idea to come up with the detailed explanation of the trip in light of recent controversies regarding travel by city employees, but Tatum denied the assertion.

“I asked him to write me a more detailed explanation about the trip,” she said. “I requested it from him. I asked him to put it in writing.”

Mike Culhane, the company’s president, said the trip was to allow zoo directors to check out the company’s accommodations, food, travel vehicles and other services but also to familiarize them with a mostly unexplored part of Africa.

“It was absolutely a business trip,” he said. “They get worked real hard.”