But we’d never dropped the doors. Good point to look learn. We’d never drop the doors. So in goes the male, not a problem, and we hadn’t dropped the door on him because he was in, and in goes to the female and the door jams because she evidently twisted… Read More
And I’m looking at this thing and I’m thinking, “This is gonna be disaster. We’ve got this big ceremony to everything coming up and we’ve got these two rhinos that now we got to try to get them in and they wouldn’t go in. So we ended up having to… Read More
By knock them down, you mean?… Read More
Would you say there were different techniques for different types of animals that you learned for grabbing or handling them?… Read More
Yes. I mean, there was a certain technique on grabbing certain primates and how you held them behind with their arms behind him. And that pretty well contain them. Cats, we’d never grabbed. I mean, we’d always net. hoofstocks, same way. We’d almost always either just get them confined in… Read More
It was sometimes tough and then sometimes even with the capture gun, we couldn’t get animals moved. And we had a situation. In fact, I gave you a picture of us trying to get that rhino out of the crate. It took us forever to get him in and then… Read More
So we had crates built, we set the crates up at the top of the yard. And this was a month before the pandas were supposed to, actually a little bit more than a month because they were doing some work inside on the inside of the exhibit for the… Read More
And the door opens from the inside of the building and out comes to Jaguar. And I wasn’t even paying any attention ’cause I was talking to somebody until I heard this woman say, “Look, he’s creeping up on him.” And I turned around and here’s the Jaguar right behind… Read More
So we really were fortunate. I think back in those days there was a lot less, I mean, yeah, we were cognizant of having to make sure that all the gates were locked and the doors were secured, but there was a lot of laxity. And I think I was… Read More
We were able to go in and net it, but again, just really fortunate. Read More
And as soon as the people stepped back and they weren’t being fed anymore, the mother just turned around, two cubs followed her and went back down around behind the bear enclosure, but we didn’t know where she was. And so somebody had to go down there and find out… Read More
And it was again, “Okay, step back, this isn’t,” and they were saying, “No, no, she’s got my cooler. I mean, it’s great, can we stay here?” “No, you can’t.” And as soon as they went back, the mother grabbed the cooler, went back into the exhibit with her kid. Read More
How do you feel as you look back in general, would you say zoos are better prepared today for emergency, such as animal escapes than as you were in your formative years?… Read More
Yeah, I really do. I think escapes today, first of all, are pretty rare. I mean, in fact it sounds like what’s going on today is that the animals aren’t actually getting out, the public is getting in, which is a shame because with all the open exhibits now, I… Read More
And there was a huge group of people standing in there when we were walking by. And it was Darrell Bones was with me and I turned to him and I said, “Darrell, what’s going on over there?” And so I walked over and I kinda moved my and look… Read More
So I both Darrell and I just walked into the crowd and just said can you step back and step back, call the vets, call the police, can you step back?… Read More
Well now, they’ve got a code green situation at national. And I think in most of those now, so if an animal does escape, there’s a code green and everybody’s alerted, the vets are alerted, the security forces are alerted, and this is, regardless of what it is now, it… Read More
I mean, a branch, a tree, fell on a fence, we got both cheetahs got loose, and that happened a couple of times. We had a Tasmanian devil get loose and get run over on the road, down behind the zoo. At some point somebody found it and we’d been… Read More
But nobody knew it was out in until he came up the hill and got on the main walkway through the center of the zoo. And I remember it was in Small Mammal House and got the word that the tapir was out and I walk out and here’s the… Read More
Always the vets, always the vets, except another interesting story. This was when Clint Gray was vet and they had changed from the CO2 to the 23 cartridge charged guns, which had a much higher velocity, and they had, depending upon what the distance was that the animal was being… Read More