My entire zoo career at St. Louis Zoo, I had the opportunity to attend the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, their national conferences and many of the regional conferences. In fact as a curator, I served on the Board of Regents the first time with Denny Merritt and… Read More
So I always introduced my new director to AZA. I brought him for the first time to the zoo conference and introduced him to other zoo people. Read More
I’ve never seen that. First of all at the reptile house in El Paso, Texas, there was a reptile contract, reptile garden run by a guy named Jerry Tordt. And he had in this reptile house a snake pit that was a brick wall surrounding a moat and there was… Read More
And there were similar shows in Florida. Ross Allen did regular reptile shows where they would actually milk rattlesnakes and the venom was sold to manufacturers of antivenin where they would inject snake venom into a horse and then take the horse serum and make antivenin. So there were demonstrations. Read More
And Jim Alexander came out. He had an eagle trained to the gauntlet and an owl and he would tell the difference between the owls, nocturnal birds of prey and the hawks and eagles as diurnal birds of prey and the value of the predator/prey relationship. So there have been… Read More
Animal rides?… Read More
In the use of domestic animals, I have no problem with ponies and I think a camel ride is a domesticated animal. I’m afraid I have a hard time accepting elephants anymore as elephant ride. I think any elephant in captivity oughta be part of an organized, coordinated breeding program. Read More
Why do you think there have never really been reptile, I won’t say show but demonstrations like a bird show and so forth?… Read More
It’s humane. I don’t have a problem. I don’t have a problem with bird shows where these mostly are hand-reared birds that can’t be released back in the wild. These shows are ambassadors for the wildlife. It’s an opportunity to train people, to educate people in a fun one-on-one way… Read More
But again, most of these animals are captive-raised. Many of ’em are even part of a captive breeding program and they are ambassadors and they are playing a role in education. So those are exceptions. It’s a matter of individual case on how that’s handled. And animal rides. Animal rights?… Read More
Oh, I’m sorry. Forget the other one. Read More
What are your opinion of these different kind of one?… Read More
I’ll give you three things: shows that are now proliferating, the type of temporary exhibits that come to zoos and animal rides: camel rides, elephant rides, pony rides within that genre of I’ll say as you mentioned entertainment which is certainly recreation. So let’s start with the animal shows that… Read More
Good, bad?… Read More
Well I think in general, animal acts don’t belong in the zoo. But I will make an exception with such as where the animals are not endangered, that there’s no threat to their natural environment as a result of the shows, that the shows have an absolute educational value and… Read More
“Get rid of the zoo director, bring the monkey show back.” But the commission threw that petition away and stuck with me and people began falling in love with the Jungle of the Apes watchin’ baby orangutans being born, watchin’ chimps being born, watchin’ baby gorillas being born. So today,… Read More
The stingray touch tank. Read More
You said you helped phase them out when you were deputy director or director?… Read More
As I was deputy director and director during that time. It happened a little bit at a time to phase them out. It became difficult getting chimps because they were now endangered. We wanted a new exhibit. I have to say the cat collection was phased out first. That was… Read More
That was 1975. It took us a little longer to phase out the chimp show, but we couldn’t get any more chimps. One year under Schultz, we had to bring in a private act. We had a guy named Lil’ brought in from California with four chimps for a couple… Read More