(Ed laughs) After a few years, the glamor, there were some years that the glamor- A zoo director has to be jack of all trades to be master of one. You have your hat in many different arenas, at least in our zoo because of the society, the original society,… Read More
It’s been in my blood. My father had interest in animals. My uncle in Europe in Czechoslovakia kept birds, so maybe it’s something in the blood, I don’t know, but it seemed like an inherited passion, ’cause I’ve always known what I wanted to be from a little guy on. Read More
And did it change over the years?… Read More
You indicated there were some golden times. We always had a zoological society, and we received, as I stated, we received probably very little and some years nothing and other times, very little from the city, and working for a society, it presents its own challenges because a society that… Read More
After a few years, did the glamor wear off or was the glamor still there being the zoo director?… Read More
Can you talk about the concept of a frozen zoo and the plant conservation project?… Read More
Dr. Dresser, one of the areas that she began to develop interests was what Kurt Benirschke was doing in San Diego. It really started in San Diego, the idea of the frozen zoo. Benirschke I think perhaps was doing it more with tissue, animal tissue and Oli Ryder, and Betsy… Read More
I thought we should be developing methods of saving endangered plants as well, and Betsy liked that idea, and she hired a young botanical researcher, Valerie Pence, and Valerie’s still at the zoo and doing some fantastic things with culturing media and freezing and et cetera, that is gonna prove… Read More
How did you develop your relationship with the zoo society that was a major part of the Cincinnati Zoo?… Read More
Why was it important for Cincinnati to host it?… Read More
When we hosted the conference, the 1999 conference for the preservation of endangered species or the captive breeding of dangerous species, it was extremely important for our zoo because we were doing great things, but it wasn’t known out there. It really hadn’t percolated to the zoo community things that… Read More
And I think a few years later, we may have hosted another one. Read More
Oh, and one of my first duties at the zoo, when I came in on as general curator, Bill Hoff, he hadn’t introduced me to the group yet, and he said Ed, Ralph Corbett will give us $5,000 if we can walk a cheetah across the stage in the opera… Read More
But the opera was a grand thing for the zoo, and the only reason we lost the opera, Ralph Corbett, who was a benefactor of the opera, provided the money to redo Music Hall and that’s when we really began our rebuilding program, ’cause we could get rid of this… Read More
Did it meet your expectations?… Read More
A question about did it help attendance?… Read More
And in the way the zoo changed, why weren’t these events appropriate?… Read More
We had a lot, as I explained in some conversations earlier, we had a lot of events at the zoo that were non-zoo related. Or the earlier boards even before my time used to build attendance. And unfortunately, early on, often at the expense of the collection, because the collection… Read More
But we had a facility that I was very proud of. We had an affinity with Grand Opera for oh, I think it was probably back into the 30s. The only bad thing about the opera was it was in a big old building that dominated, it was right in… Read More
We had access to a- It was a serendipity, had access to 180 acre farm just outside of Cincinnati in another county. And it was the Mass family, Mr. and Mrs. Mass loved the zoo and their daughter Blanche was given- They gave their property to the zoo and their… Read More