No, it shouldn’t, absolutely not. You should face the community. If you’re doing wrong, the zoo should know about it, and the community will let you know. No, I don’t think we should isolate ourselves. I think having that checks and balances is perfect. If you’re not performing your duties… Read More
What’s the most effective way to develop and manage a zoo today dealing with these kinds of entities?… Read More
I think Edward Wilson said it best when they asked Ed Wilson at a lecture at the Cincinnati Zoo, how we can deal with environmental problems, and his answer was educate, educate, educate. And I think that’s what you have to do with politicians. You have to bring politicians into… Read More
You know, in terms of community support, the importance of community support, when I started in the zoo in Cincinnati, I didn’t realize the importance of it. I mean, coming new into the organization, I had enough internal things to correct and to adjust and to get working properly. However,… Read More
Do you think a zoo or an aquarium in any way can build insulation against these external political issues or not?… Read More
Money, money, money. The difficulties of running a zoo obviously haven’t changed much. Dollars are really- You’re competing in many ways with other non-profit institutions for the recreational dollar, so you’ve got to put your best foot forward and keep the people coming through the gate and make them want… Read More
What issues would you like to see zoos in general address in the future?… Read More
I think I probably have spoken to issues that I’d like to see zoos address in the future, and I think if we don’t address those aspects of environmental change and dealing with the issues like population, we’re gonna lose everything or a good portion of what we have. Good… Read More
Did you realize community support was important to the Cincinnati Zoo and other zoos, or did this start to take shape where you realized you had to have that support and how important was it to Cincinnati?… Read More
When I started in the zoo business, at least in Cincinnati in Lincoln Park, we had a good visitation. We were a free zoo, municipal zoo. So we didn’t have many of the problems that I faced when I came to Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, we had a situation where we… Read More
So, but I’ve seen, with good public relations, and we got people out in the field, we started bringing experts in to a kind of look over how we could better bring the public’s awareness of our institution through marketing and advertising and also good public relations, and eventually by… Read More
What issues caused you the most concern during your career, and how do you see the future regarding those same type of concerns?… Read More
Well, when I was in Cincinnati, we really did not have to confront- We didn’t have the problem with animal rights groups. Maybe to a small extent, but nothing that was major that we couldn’t handle with good public relations. When I was in Los Angeles, it was a different… Read More
Do you think that’s a problem or how should curators be trained today with what is expected of them?… Read More
Well, my observation of present day curators, at least in a number of institutions, is that they spend too much time behind a computer and not enough time in the zoo itself. You cannot operate a zoo nor can you manage a zoo without being involved in the grounds and… Read More
What changes have you seen during your years in the zoo field regarding visitor attitudes and administration at the national level?… Read More
What kind of criteria would you recommend to small again and medium sized zoos when thinking about future exhibits or conservation type exhibits?… Read More
Well, if you take a small zoo, again, it depends on the geography in some sense, because one can play off the other. Is a zoo is found in a threatened ecological zone, it could put a lot of its emphasis in that threatened ecological zone and work to rebuild… Read More
Could you give us your thoughts on how best to deal with these type of groups and did you have to?… Read More
Should it be regional, western hemisphere, should it be endangered species, non endangered species?… Read More