Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

From his office, Jack Mulvena doesn’t have a view of any of the 150 or so species that populate Rhode Island’s Roger Williams Park Zoo, which he has led for the past four years. He looks out on cars zooming past on I-95. “My job is to manage the outside world,” he says.

Mulvena, who grew up in Delaware, spent seven years with the United Way in Providence before moving in 1993 to become the director of the Rhode Island Zoological Society, a nonprofit organization formed to support the zoo. Last summer, the society took over management of the zoo for the City of Providence; since 2002 Mulvena has headed both entities. Fundraising is a major part of the job (there are plans for $30 million in physical improvements over the next five years), as is defining the zoo’s strategic priorities (should the zoo create a big-draw tiger exhibit, for example, or concentrate on upgrading the homes of its current animals?). As often as he can, Mulvena wanders through the zoo itself, watching children measure their jumps against a sign marking the snow leopard’s leap, or taking in the acrobatics of the white-cheeked gibbons at the Australasia exhibit.

When the zoo, the third oldest in the country, was founded in 1872, its single purpose was to show exotic animals. These days it’s known for its international conservation efforts—including a research and education project in Papua New Guinea aimed at protecting the habitat of tree kangaroos—and for newer, local undertakings. The zoo has established a breeding program for the dwindling American burying beetle, now found mainly on Block Island; and, in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island, it is using zoo wetlands to test ways to eradicate the invasive, habitat-destroying purple loosestrife plant.

In 2005, Mulvena decided to close the zoo’s 3,000-square-foot polar bear residence; with the bears housed temporarily at other zoos, a new 18,000-square-foot habitat offering saltwater streams, underwater swimming, and tundra is under construction. It will be the centerpiece of a North American trail, where visitors will wander past snowy owl, arctic fox, bald eagle, red wolf, bison, and pronghorn antelope, while learning about the consequences of global warming and the revival of endangered species. The zoo’s job, says Mulvena, is to “build a collection that has the wow factor but that also balances and tells these stories.”

Katie Bacon is a writer based in the Boston area.

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