The movie "Field of Dreams" had a simple theme: Build a baseball field and people will come.
Here in this northern Rocky Mountain oil-refining city, people had a similar faith about the zoo they wanted to build.A zoo is usually a big-city institution. It takes a lot of money and people to support one. But in 1982, civic leaders in this city of 100,000 formed a board to build ZooMontana.
For the first seven years, the zoo did not even have a home. Then the state donated 70 acres in 1989. And residents supported the zoo's major fund-raiser, a yearly outdoor music festival, even though ZooMontana did not have a single animal.
When ZooMontana finally held a grand opening this fall, 10,000 people poured through its gates. What they saw was a 20-year work in progress, which includes the zoo's twin-wing administration and education complex and a replica of a 19th-century homestead with a large complement of domestic farm animals. An amphitheater is under construction. Beyond that is large grassland that will someday hold wildlife of the Western high plains.
In another direction, trails wind through a wooded ravine where visitors will find habitats for the endangered Siberian tiger, North American river otters and waterfowl.
Unlike urban zoos, which crowd many exhibits and animals on relatively small sites, ZooMontana will emphasize large habitats and fewer animals.
"Zoos once tried to get as many animals as they could, but that's not necessarily the way for the future," said ZooMontana's director, William Torgerson, a veterinarian by training who has worked at some of North America's largest zoos.
Zoo theory has changed radically in recent decades. Zoos now favor large natural habitats that allow animals to behave much as they would in the wild. These natural settings also promote breeding, a vital consideration at a time when zoos are trying to preserve endangered species though captive-breeding programs.
But older zoos are stuck. They were built when animals were kept in cages. Often landlocked by urban development, these zoos must tear out cages and start over if they want to provide more room for their animals. Many are doing just that at considerable expense, including Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, where Torgerson worked before coming here.
ZooMontana does not have to rebuild, remodel or renovate. "It's the difference between building a new house or remodeling an old one," said Jay Kirkpatrick, the zoo's director of science and conservation. "We can travel around the world and look at zoos, look at what's good and what's bad, and avoid what's bad."
ZooMontana's habitats give animals space and a natural setting, while yielding a clear view for visitors, who pay $3 for adults and $2 for children. The Siberian tiger enclosure is a case in point. From one side, spectators look down at the tigers. From a lower level, they can see them through safety glass more than an inch thick.
Since tigers are native to Siberian forests, trees were left standing on a site that runs roughly two-thirds the length and width of a football field. Tigers like to swim, so the zoo built two pools, one shallow and one deep.
In the heat of summer, the tigers find shade on ledges of a cliff carved from cement and painted to look like a rock.
"The tigers can't tell the difference and neither can most people," said Ted Wirth, head of Wirth Design Associates, one of three firms that designed the tiger habitat.
The zoo plans even larger habitats for its plains animals. Bison and elk will some day roam a plateau the size of five football fields. But there is a trade-off. While older zoos boast thousands of animals, ZooMontana has about 90 (excluding insects) and will probably never have more than 1,000.
"We're making every attempt to have habitats rather than just exhibits," Torgerson said.
ZooMontana plans to emphasize species of the northern Rocky Mountains and other cold-weather-climate zones, a money-saving decision. Since the zoo will not have warm-weather animals, it won't have to build costly alternative winter homes.
Even so, building a new zoo is not cheap. The zoo's otters swim in a simulated river setting that cost more than $200,000. The tiger habitat cost roughly twice that.
Many zoos are tax supported. But ZooMontana is a private nonprofit effort unable to rely on tax dollars. Costs have passed $4 million already and could top $25 million when the zoo is finished in about 20 years. But local corporations, foundations and more than 3,500 individuals have contributed funds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in building materials have been donated. More than 400 volunteers help the zoo's full-time staff of five, sweeping grounds, taking tickets, answering phones and cleaning animal quarters.
"It's a little bit like motherhood and apple pie," said Wayne Schile, chairman of the zoo board and publisher of The Billings Gazette. "It has something for everyone."
Billings is only a way-stop in a popular tourist region that includes Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. But city leaders think Billings could tap more tourist dollars if they could get visitors to linger. The zoo "could be enough reason for people to spend an additional day in Billings," said Schile.
For years, some people here questioned whether Billings would ever have a zoo. When Torgerson arrived in 1993, the zoo had just one animal, an African monkey that lived in the zoo's gift shop.
Friends wondered why he took the job after holding administrative positions at major zoos in Illinois and North Carolina. Torgerson told them he relished the challenge of starting a new zoo. "I don't think I would have had the opportunity to start a new zoo at any other time in my career," he said.
His confidence was rewarded. The year Torgerson arrived, the zoo finished its first habitat, which houses river otters. Homes for waterfowl, farm animals and Siberian tigers followed. An aviary is scheduled to open next year.
Long-term plans call for bison, elk, deer, black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs to roam simulated high plains. Another area will feature musk oxen, caribou and other animals of the northern Canadian plains. A third will emphasize animals of the Asian plains - Mongolian wild horses, Bactrian camels and possibly Siberian cranes.
These habitats will be created on open plateaus that offer a visual counterpoint to the zoo's other main feature, a long wooded ravine split by a creek. Throughout the design process, planners have taken advantage of ZooMontana's natural attributes. "You want to preserve the very things that give the site its worth," Wirth said.
Over time, ZooMontana may become as landlocked as zoos in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It lies in this city's West End growth corridor. A housing development already abuts one boundary.
Torgerson is aware of the problem. Though the zoo site is still largely empty, "you can eat it up pretty quickly," he said. "There's some property to the north of us I'd like to buy, but I don't have the money."
So ZooMontana will use what it has, emphasizing quality, not quantity. "It doesn't bother me at all that we may never have 2,000 animals," said Torgerson. "A good zoo doesn't have to be big."