The zoo director, zoo staff, to go see how other zoos are doing it, be it good or be it bad to talk to peers. You know, quite often I would go to the zoo and not tell my peer I was coming. I just wanted to sneak around being… Read More
So going to other institutions is vitally important. Vitally important for all levels. I don’t care if you’re guest services. I don’t care if you’re animal keepers. I don’t care if you’re facilities, I don’t care if you’re horticulture. I don’t care if you’re management. You need to go and… Read More
You know, I think a really phenomenal creature is the Komodo dragon. And I would love to have seen Komodos come to the zoo. Never made it happen. You know, and that’s okay. But I, I, I got to see so many things come and such a diversity of things… Read More
How important do you think it is for a zoo director to travel to other zoos and, and see things Vitally important?… Read More
That’s the biggest change anymore, is we have to worry about the public, the public perception and what the public is thinking about. About your institution and your collection. Read More
Is there one animal species that you always wanted to work with but didn’t Do?… Read More
That’s good. So you have some genetic diversity. So, you know, and I’ve seen bars disappear, which is good. And sometimes it’s just whitewashed to remove the bars. ’cause sometimes you take off the bars and you put the fancy expensive stainless steel mesh in its place. It’s still a… Read More
In your career, how have you seen zoo exhibits change during your career?… Read More
You know, some changes have been good, some changes have been bad. You know, I think so many, if they have the resources they go to make them so immersive and to to, to change and make people feel like they’re been whisked away to another part of the world. Read More
I swung my leg over, put his head right there between my legs and put all my 180 pounds on top of him. And he went o And I used some expletive words to the driver about getting that vehicle moving really, really quickly. ’cause there I was sitting on… Read More
And we’ve been married. We got married in 1988 and have three phenomenal sons who are grown men today. And all because of the Lincoln Children’s Zoo, because I turned her down for a job at the Potawatomi Zoo in 1983. Well, on another deck. Read More
’cause I’m five nine and she’s six foot one. She says, you don’t remember me. This is how she introduced herself. You don’t remember me, but you turned me down for a job three years ago. And I said, Ms. Benton, I do remember you. I wanted to hire you. Read More
I look to the other guy on the other side going, what do we do?… Read More
Okay, Ivan sitting up, he went, I dunno, what did I do?… Read More
This is a 500 pound Siberian AM tiger. Read More
The tiger shook his head going, what’s going on?… Read More
Then the tiger decided to get up on his front legs. So this is a tiger sitting like that in the bed of the pickup truck right at my feet and the other guy’s feet. And there’s a tiger right there. Read More
And he was a very nice man. And he tranquilized the tiger. Well, we had no crates to put the animal in. We didn’t train animals to go into crates. We just, so we just put Ivan on the tarp, lifted the tarp, put in the back of a pickup… Read More
Ivan is sound asleep between us. Okay?… Read More
And we keep him covered except for his head. And so this, we start, Dr guys starts driving the truck around the zoo. It’s October and there’s some cool air, cool breezes hitting the tiger’s face. Read More