She like, she was in shock. The little boy was standing up with a sheet around him, with the blood, you know, coming through and the medic. She said, pulled me out of the car, said, “Get in there and get the arm. “You’ve got to get that arm, “or… Read More
“You don’t have to shoot anything, okay?… Read More
Even though my dad knew what he was doing, I was trying to do most of it, I can’t do anything. So I screwed the whole thing up, but see, I love living there. And so we took this property, beautiful, and right out front of it had a gorgeous… Read More
I had some, a Sika deer, I think it was. And my, oh, I had a spider monkey for them. At that point, they got the two chimpanzees we had, helping them, I don’t know why, where they, they were at the zoo. At that time, I was trying to… Read More
But the three-year-old little boy went there to see the animals. She calls and, “Sure, come and see the animals.” So I’d gone over to The Pet, come back to the pet shop. My wife had taken the girls out for shopping. I said, “Just go in and look at… Read More
I said, “Okay, that’s, that’s incredible.” So I said, may do that, I may do that, right?… Read More
Then the terrible thing happened with the lion. One of my lions, Daisy. We had, I had built a house like an ark. Our farm was over here, and this other farm about three miles away. It built it like an ark, it’s called Hanna’s Ark. And out of wood,… Read More
So somehow I met Stan in Florida actually, but I went to Florida because I’d met Stan by, I watched Wild Kingdom. So I had actually, I had him come to Knoxville to do one of his shows, show me some of his tapes at the Knoxville zoo We had… Read More
He called, he said, “Jack, you know something?… Read More
“Jim Fowler has a 2000 acres of place down there, “Albany, Georgia, and needs somebody “to help with the animals. “You know, I think you might want to try that.” Now I had the two kids, no, all three of them, the girl, little girls. Read More
But I guess what, where I’m coming from is, yes, everything I did from the animal clinic at the age of 11 to 16 cleaning cages, I can even apply things there to today. Now you talked about the Florida in 1960, 73, your career took a turn. Read More
How did you get to this place in Sanford, in the Sanford Zoo?… Read More
In 1973, okay, I graduated in 69 with my wife. In 1970, 71, 72, I got in the army there for about a year or so there. In and out of the pet pet shop business, and then that kind of thing. Then all of a sudden, Stan Brock, the… Read More
But now when I became a zookeeper, then a curator in Knoxville, and then that’s about where I went to. And then I was just lucky, and it’s long, we get into that, how I got to central Florida zoo, where I was the director of five employees. But you… Read More
So I learned by reading, I learn by experience. That was invaluable to me, those things I learned when I was 18 20, 21, 22, 23. I also learned about accidents. And we’ll get into that in a second. If you read my book about how that little boy lost… Read More
Things happen to all of us. I could go on and on and tell you mistakes I made. You know, but we’ll get into that too. When I had the Wallendas walk across the tigers. I mean, this, the crazy things I did back then. I would never do that… Read More
You kidding me?… Read More
As I’ve traveled the world, every, I mean, I’ve traveled for 30-something years doing this. And I’ve not been to every corner, but about every corner. And so what you see out there are people who love animals. You see people who have consumption animals, and you see how we… Read More
And do you think some of these experiences, we’re talking about a lot of other things, but some of those experiences early on in your career were preparing, even though you weren’t thinking about it, were preparing you to be a zoo director?… Read More
Oh, there’s no doubt about the experiences I was experiencing came back so critical for me being a zoo director. There’s no doubt about, I didn’t know it at the time. Read More