There was no money anymore and they had to close. But the city was very eager to keep the zoo open. And they bought up about 90% of the shares, 90% of the shares. And it brings up the subsidy. It was the political will that the people of cologne… Read More
Who owns it? How does it run?… Read More
From a municipal standpoint?… Read More
Secondly, we, one year after I became director in 82, we founded a Society of Friends of the Zoo to get money by membership, by sponsorship. And this helped us, in fact to to to build new exhibits. And the first one was the Great Ape exhibit, which was opened… Read More
So can you talk a little bit about the structure and management of the zoo?… Read More
Well, one of our greatest problems were finances. And I don’t remember the exact number, exact fi figure. We paid a lot of money for water, I think some 10% of the oil. So this was incredible. And we started to save money by not cleaning every, every stall with… Read More
I mean they did their jobs better, but sometimes it was a little bit to convince them. When we started new methods, like the coordinated breeding programs, for instance, the breeding loan method, you know that you are not anymore owner of your own animals. You give that to the… Read More
So when you became the director, were there management issues that you had to deal with right from the beginning?… Read More
So as the new director, did you have any kind of tricks to help manage the people that were working under you?… Read More
Anything that you did to try and manage these people and to help them do their jobs?… Read More
Well, I learned very much from the books of Edgar and I all my time as a director. I, from time to time, looked into what Hegar had said. Otherwise I had in the few first years, very few contacts to my German colleagues. And the one who pulled me… Read More
So I was adopted as a member of Wza and very soon I was president, not chairman of the membership committee from many years. And by this I was a member of the board of of, of the ZA and involved in everything. Read More
What, what kind of leader were you, in your opinion?… Read More
With no previous meaningful zoo experience, They were certainly very skeptical. But on the other hand, some of the animal keepers knew me from my time as a student working myself as a animal keeper. Well, and I had a quite well reputation. And of course this rule the long… Read More
What was your management style?… Read More
So I was welcome, very skeptical in the first years. Now we’ve talked about it a little bit. You are new, you are now the director of the zoo, you had to manage this zoo. Read More
It was a little old fashioned, my, my pre-processor, he was not very successful. He didn’t develop the zoo in a proper way and he had brought up the whole stuff against him so they couldn’t continue with them. Read More
And when you became the director, how did the staff react to you as director?… Read More
So our careers are so similar that I thought they never take somebody from the university anymore. And why they did, I don’t know. Read More
What kind of zoo did you find when you came to Cologne?… Read More