(FORTUNE Magazine) – The Zoological Society of San Diego has done more than most businesses to transform itself into a 21st-century organization. It deserves to be seen for its management as well as for its spectacular collection of beasts and birds. With 1,200 year-round employees, $75 million in revenues, and five million visitors a year, the San Diego Zoo and its Wild Animal Park make a sizable outfit whose competitors -- among them Walt Disney and Anheuser-Busch, owner of nearby Sea World -- are real gorillas. Also, as a world-renowned scientific and conservation organization, the zoo must maintain high technical standards and a Caesar's-wife purity on environmental and other issues. The zoo is steadily remodeling to show its animals by bioclimatic zone (an % African rain forest called Gorilla Tropics, or Tiger River, an Asian jungle environment) rather than by taxonomy (pachyderms, primates). As displays open -- three out of ten are finished -- they're fundamentally altering the way the zoo is run. The old zoo was managed through its 50 departments -- animal keeping, horticulture, maintenance, food service, fund raising, education, and others. It had all the traits of functional management, says David Glines, head of employee development. Glines started out as a groundsman, responsible for keeping paths clear of trash. If he was tired or rushed, Glines remembers, ''sometimes I'd sweep a cigarette butt under a bush. Then it was the gardener's problem, not mine.'' The departments are invisible in the redesigned parts of the zoo. Tiger River, for instance, is run by a team of mammal and bird specialists, horticulturists, and maintenance and construction workers. The four-year-old team, led by keeper John Turner, tracks its own budget on a PC that isn't hooked up to the zoo's mainframe. Members are jointly responsible for the display, and it's hard to tell who comes from which department. When the path in front of an aviary needed fixing last autumn, the horticulturist and the construction man did it. Seven people run Tiger River; when it started there were 11, but as team members learned one another's skills, they decided they didn't need to replace workers who left. (P.S.: They're all Teamsters union members.) Freed from managerial chores now handled by teams, executives can go out and drum up more interest in the zoo. Any effect on business? Southern California tourism took some hits in 1991 -- first from the Gulf war, then from the recession -- but the San Diego Zoo enjoyed a 20% increase in attendance. Part of the reason is price: At $12 it costs less than half as much to enter the zoo gates as it does to get into Disneyland. Zoo director Douglas Myers credits employees' sense of ownership. Says he: ''I told them recession is coming; we're going to target our marketing on the local area alone, and we're going to ask all our visitors to come back five times -- so each time they'd better have more fun than the time before. The employees came through.''