The then general curator, George Irving, was an interesting guy. You have to understand that this was my first job. I was literally beside myself with joy that I had this position. I went to work a week before I should have, and he made it perfectly clear to me… Read More
I think my relationship was really good. Eddie (indistinct), who was the zoologist in charge of reptiles and the reptile house later to become curator. He really was my mentor. Eddie kind of took me under his wing. In fact, in the beginning, we lived in the same apartment house. Read More
We could share that information. We could share that excitement with each other. And I also knew that if I was ever gonna make a mark in the zoo, that it had to be with mammals, Eddie was par excellence in terms of his ability, his intuitive knowledge with reptiles… Read More
You’re the college kid. Read More
What was your read, did they all have the same, did you all have the same responsibilities in your different areas?… Read More
Did they all have the record keeping, et cetera?… Read More
And what was your relationship with these zoologists?… Read More
How important would you say these rounds were to you or to people who aspire to be in a profession?… Read More
I think these rounds were very important to me. I learned a great deal by just being in the animal areas with the animals and with people who took care of the animals. It was an essential part of my day I, before I did anything else on any given… Read More
This is, these are the nets that we use. These are the tools that we use. This is a quirk of this particular ostrich, or this is a quirk of this red kangaroo. And so I got to know some of the animals in the collection as individuals. Give me… Read More
I mean, I had seen great apes, I had seen chimps, I’d seen harangues, I had seen gorillas. One day when I was in the old primate house, the then senior keeper, Roy Hoff said, “Come here, kid, you wanna meet an orangutan?” And so I went behind the scenes… Read More
Now, this was one of my, this was one of the things that I were supposed to accomplish over the course of time, no rush, no hurry, do it with detail, get as much information as you can from the old records as new animals come in, include that information. Read More
As zoologist, did you, or were you required, or did you desire to make daily rounds of your kingdom?… Read More
I couldn’t be kept out of the animal areas much to the chagrin of some of the old time keepers. I made a point of being not only around, but in every area, front, back, up, down, if there was a closet, if there was a basement area, if there… Read More
I mean, we made a conscious effort that people would be cross-trained, that they would know more than how to take care of antelope for instance, or how to take care of the chickens or how to take care of the handleable animals in the children’s zoo. There was a… Read More
Did you find that the zoo had good record keeping?… Read More
A good question about record keeping, the record keeping was essentially non-existent when I arrived at the zoo and one of my first responsibilities was develop an inventory system. There were lots of ledgers in buildings that had either daily notes or scribbles on a page, in a bound volume… Read More
Was this something they directed you to do, or this was on your own?… Read More
Did they conflict?… Read More
Were they in sync with what you were trying to do?… Read More