The development of these restraint agents is one of the key milestones in the development of zoological medicine. I have no qualms about that at all. We can now do things that we couldn’t do before, diagnostic work, surgical work. Surgery in a wild animal is no different than in… Read More
Red Palmer, who was the kind of the developer of the capture gun, and he used nicotine alkaloids as his agent. That was the only one that was available then. Well, there were succinylcholine and curare were also used, but that was the only commercial one that was available. And… Read More
First of all, you had to have a special license in order to even get the drug. I think probably the first time that I used it was on tule elk, and this was actually in a field situation with a free ranging elk. And I knew that it was… Read More
But oftentimes I was the anesthetist and the surgeon on the things that I did. I had some graduate students that started working with some of these drugs. Then the things like a Rompun or Xylazine came on the scene, we used these, we gained some experiences. We shared experiences… Read More
You don’t get close to a taper in terms of emotional closeness, but I could accomplish a lot with that animal by just going easy, stroking it and doing, I could do a rectal, not a palpation, but take a temperature and this sort of thing. So I think that… Read More
What was your first experience using tranquilizers on animals?… Read More
And was this a new technology when you entered the field or was it developed as you were already in the field?… Read More
Well, the development of some of the drugs for chemical immobilization in the zoo field started in the 1950s. I didn’t graduate from veterinary school until ’55. And so, as I said with the chimpanzee, the only anesthetic agent that I had was a phenobarbital, which was a human sedative. Read More
When you were working with animals, either the zoo or the circus, but the zoo, did you ever get close to any of them that you really have- You mean any of the animal extremists?… Read More
No, at the zoo, the animals that you worked with, did you get close to any of them that some are patients, some are special patients ’cause they recognize you or they knew who you were in a positive way as opposed to a negative way?… Read More
Well, we’re told that we shouldn’t become emotionally involved with any of our patients in veterinary medicine. That’s impossible because you do get emotionally involved. And I became specifically involved with some of the primates. We had chimpanzees at the Sacramento Zoo, and one of those chimpanzees hated me with… Read More
It can’t throw feces through the glass, so he didn’t do that, but I could come in on a Sunday afternoon in a business suit and he would recognize me. And the people at the zoo often knew that I was in the zoo because the chimpanzees had some high,… Read More
Were you ever the focus?… Read More
Well, yes, I have been the focus of given situations. I mentioned at least one point where the media was there, and the animal activist jumped on that and said how terrible a veterinarian I was. I think in a lot of situations, I have been in political meetings where… Read More
In thinking about different situations that transpired with working with elephants, I never personally have been involved in a close call working with elephants. But I remember one particular elephant actually in Wisconsin, in Madison, that Bill Lindsey and I, and he’s an alumnus essentially of Madison Veterinary School ’cause… Read More
I never worked with an elephant where I didn’t have a keeper that was knowledgeable about elephants that was under control of that elephant. And yet I knew that they could slap with their trunks, they could kick, they can smack you with a tail, they can press you, they… Read More
On a different subject, but still within zoos and circuses, how did you deal or how did you see it dealt with animal activists when they were attacking you to the zoo or the surface?… Read More
I can talk that up from a standpoint of foot problems and elephants are always a special challenge. And when I first started, we dealt with physical restraint as the only means of examining those feet and treating foot problems. Nowadays with the advancement and training procedures and so forth,… Read More
You mentioned that thankfully you’ve never been hurt working with elephants. Read More
Have there been some memorable situations where for one reason or another, you might’ve been in an awkward position or something that surprised you so much about the intelligence of an individual elephant, that you were quite aware that it was very unusual when you were doing your medical issues… Read More