Ingrid U. Schmidt (1942-2014) was an American zoological park administrator.
Born Ingrid Hartz in Karlsruhe, Germany, she grew up loving animals. As a child, Ingrid kept scrapbooks of her favorite horse photos and equestrian athletes, rode and showed horses herself, and then became a zookeeper in Recklinghausen.
Ingrid immigrated to the United States when she was 19. After a brief time in New York, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska where she married Larry Schmidt. Together they managed horse stables at a recreation area outside Omaha. Ingrid's love for animals soon landed her a job as a zookeeper at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. She worked with many species at the Henry Doorly Zoo but became especially well known in the zoo community for her work caring for large cat and ungulate species.
In 1972, Ingrid accepted a Mammal Curator position at the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque, NM. She would later be promoted to General Curator.
In addition to being one of the first female zoo administrators in the US, she was an early advocate of large, naturalistic exhibits that benefited the animals by allowing for more natural, stimulating environment and served to to educated visitors to the ecosystem in which the animals lived. She was an early adopter of enrichment for zoo animals, which introduced toys, training, and other behavioral stimulation to zoo animals. Ingrid also helped start the Cheetah Species Survival Plan (SSP) at the Rio Grande Zoo which later served as a model for animal breeding programs at other zoos throughout the country. The goal of SSPs was and continues to be to breed animals in captivity to decreasing the need to remove them from the wild. Some SSPs have been successful at introducing animals into the wild.
Ingrid was one of the well known ambassadors of the Rio Grande Zoo. Her big personality was perfect for this role, from appearances on local TV shows and traveling with animals to the Johnny Carson show to representing the Rio Grande Zoo at national and international conferences and transporting baby gorillas, polar bears and many other animals on the Albuquerque Journal’s corporate jet (piloted by publisher Tom Lang himself).
She retired from the Rio Grande Zoo in 1997 and moved to her ranch near Sonoita, AZ with her husband, Bill Buchanan.
Ingrid died in Tucson, AZ on March 17, 2014 from complications of lung cancer. She was 72. At her own request, there was no funeral or graveside service, but a Hawaiian Canoe Ceremony in Maui was organized by her family and her ashes were spread off the shore of the Kalepolepo Fishpond, near the offices of the Pacific Whale Foundation.
