Yes. I think I could see that times were changing. The zoo of today is more responsible for conservation and education and it ought to be, but we can’t overlook the fact that people go to the zoo for other reasons. And all you have to do is go into… Read More
And they gives us the opportunity to get new people coming back to the zoo because they enjoyed it so much when they were younger. Additionally, it brought in those 20 and 30 year olds that never thought about going back to the zoo until their children would have to… Read More
Are there certain markets that zoos are missing or that they can start to draw from?… Read More
Who were some of those in your formative years as running the zoo that influenced you?… Read More
There were so many people who were influencing on my life in the early days. Again, I have to refer back to what Earl Davis used to do for me when he went to a conference. He’d say, “You oughta go to this conference” and I’d say, “Well, I have… Read More
Did those sessions, those formative things, did that start to shape your view on nature and the zoo’s responsibilities?… Read More
In the primate house, did you have any problems with termites at the primate house or not?… Read More
We didn’t have a problem with termites in the primate house, although there was a lot of wood involved in those old buildings, but I think it’s probably because we kept those extremely clean. Now, as a young zoo superintendent, you were dealing with other directors around the United States. Read More
I was running the business end, but we have to remember that those days, the city government had finance officers and things of that sort and I reported to them. I brought all the funds for the week’s income to the financial people at city hall. We talked about the… Read More
Were there any, during your tenure, escapes at the zoo that you had to deal with the press and might not, had been the opposite of the gorilla birth?… Read More
There were escapes when we were quite young and we relish those escapes because it gave us a chance to chase down those animals and try to put them back where they belonged. But we didn’t have some terrible problems with that in Columbus. Read More
Were you able to hire new positions at the zoo?… Read More
Did you feel you needed to bring anybody else on board to move the zoo forward?… Read More
I did bring on some people, but we didn’t really have a major group of curators. Neither did most zoos in those days. We had a lot of senior keepers, keepers who’d been around a long time and learned their particular expertise quite well. But I did bring on for… Read More
Now, were you running then, as director, the business end of the zoo or did you have someone helping you with that?… Read More
Were you at the time working with rare mammals at the zoo?… Read More
Did you have the lesser kudu or hyenas or things that were unusual at the zoo than the mammals area that Earl had brought in, or you were trying to move forward?… Read More
We didn’t have much in the way of antelopes. We didn’t have the facility for them. We had elk and deer and things of that sort, but not the antelopes, certainly not African antelopes and not many people did at that time. Some of the majors zoos of course, Chicago… Read More
Don Davis was, he worked at the Columbus Zoo until he, after military service, he came back as I did. And he applied and got the position of the zoo director for Evansville, Indiana, and worked there for a number of years, doing the same thing I was doing, planning… Read More
Now, when you started, I mean, when you were director, a superintendent of the zoo, did you have to move a lot of surplus animals out, or was there a problem in that area that you felt you had to kind of get some things out of the collection that… Read More