Director Emeritus
Marlin Perkins was a zoo man. In 1928 he was named curator of reptiles at the St. Louis Zoo. Later his career path took him to the Buffalo Zoo, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and finally back to St. Louis where he retired in 1970.
While director at Lincoln Park Zoo he hosted the first ever animal show in the history of television. It was called Zoo Parade and ran from 1949-1957. This success spawned another show Wild Kingdom in 1963. His adventures even took him to the Himalayan Mountains where he joined Sir Edmund Hillary in an expedition to find the Yeti.