I’m sure Mr. Cully was thinking of the African Plains at the Bronx and he wanted to model it after that to some extent. He didn’t have lions over a boat, looking in, but he did have this collection of hoofstock. So together on the veldt, running together were zebras, eland, wildebeest, various cranes, and some waterfowl, ostrich, but we had to be careful how we managed it because we usually kept the stallions off exhibit holding yards, brought the mares in to be bred, let the mares back out on the veldt, deliver their offspring there, so on. Then he built a conical barn for giraffes, which were on development, separated by stockade fence. And then he brought in African elephants through Z. Handler. Young pair came in in 1955. So by the time I got there, they were youngsters, but I’d seen ’em come in, and so on, before I started working at the zoo. And then a couple of years later in 1958, he brought in the first gorilla, Big Man, through Dr. Deets Picket, a local veterinarian in Kansas City.
