I had a good- The bear accident changed things, but until the bear accident, I had a pretty good rapport with the politicals, with the newspapers, the media. And the bear accident, I got a couple people on my case and eventually, you know, these things worked out, but for… Read More
Were there certain strategies for getting community involved in the zoo that you remember that were really well done?… Read More
Well, as I stated earlier, the Festival of Lights was a good one because that brought in attendance at a time when our attendance would have been the lowest and days became the highest in zoo attendance history. We also had- I think when we had, obviously, the giant panda,… Read More
How did politics, either city or state, affect the working of the zoo?… Read More
We were gonna bring in a group of- Sometimes it would be non-zoo affairs. We started bringing in singers, popular singers at night. Anything that we could turn those turnstiles and keep the attendance above budget level. Therefore when we had enough funds, we could do other things with them. Read More
What were the strengths of your marketing department?… Read More
My first marketing director was Ted. He was good and my daughter worked under him and she eventually took over the marketing part. I did not hire her. The marketing committee suggested that we hire her. So it was just to keep, you know, the nepotism out of the picture,… Read More
To generate ideas on bringing new people in the zoo, I depended largely on a good marketing department. We would do this basically at staff level. Read More
We would think of ideas, you know, how are we gonna program the zoo for that year?… Read More
What were we gonna use?… Read More
I mean, I could make it happen. I have the knowledge to make it happen thanks to the Japanese. Little change of subject. Read More
What new ideas did you bring to get people to come to the Cincinnati Zoo?… Read More
How’d you get them in the door?… Read More
The salamanders were- The salamander initiative came as a result of not many people being able to keep them. The challenge was there to develop husbandry protocols and get them going. And I accomplished that, published a lot of information that I had. Bred some very, very difficult species. And… Read More
And somebody came along and was cleaning the floor and had a hot water hose and left it in the tank and killed three animals, and one of which was a male and two females, and I had one male left. So we had a breeding- We took them through… Read More
My interest developed in amphibians- We were on a collecting trip to central Ohio and I brought out a couple of plethodons and one of the herps with me said you can’t keep them alive, they don’t live, and well, for a zoo man, there’s the first challenge. Make them… Read More
They were the group of animals that were being highly threatened. So that general interest started me into a really intensive- I tried a number of species and worked out husbandry, and I even broke it down into sort of three areas that you, temperature zones. Amphibians I found were… Read More
So I’m sorry, that’s a regret, but I should have done more with the camera. The writing could have come later, but now the animals are gone and I may never see them again. I had all the Texas cave species, I had examples of them. Read More
What happened to the salamander initiative?… Read More
-Sparked your interest in amphibians?… Read More