If I am a good zoo director, I think it is because, I saw the zoo as part of a, process, part of an overall program in relation to the wildlife it exhibited. I did not look at it administratively as a castle as I have seen in some institutions. The bricks and mortar, I considered very important, but fundamental were the animals and I didn’t see the animals as beginning and ending at the zoos fences. I saw a timber rattlesnake, not only has a wonderful exhibit in the reptile house, but as a timber rattlesnake, that ranged down to the Southern United States, where there was a wonderful race, the canebrake and up into Northern New York State, where most of the timber rattlers were melanistic. It was part of a metapopulation. And that approach and the realization that the visitors coming to the zoo were not just the communities surrounding the zoo, but from all over the place, I think was helpful. But in the end, a person is considered a good zoo director because he’s got so many good staff that’ll put up with him, and great trustees that’ll support him. And he has come to understand that he can’t do a darn thing by himself, he has to do it with the help of others, whether they be a really sharp carpenter in the maintenance department who argues for a different approach to something, or rather, a wonderful editor redoing the annual report and suggesting changes in your interpretive labels.
