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
And so they finally agreed and the first time we were gonna let one of the curators use it, it was on some Eld’s deer and, was it Eld’s deer?… Read More
Yeah, it was Eld’s deer. So they go up to the enclosure and they hand the gun to the one of the assistant curators at the time and he fires it. And first, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know whether Clint adjusted the thing wrong or forgot to… Read More
You’ve talked about capturing animals at the zoo that you were involved in escapes at the zoo that you had to recapture animals, did you have any stories about escapes that you were involved with and how it was handled?… Read More
In the initial, you mentioned the initial experimentation at the National Zoo with the capture gun, who was shooting initially?… Read More
Was at the vets who we’re shooting?… Read More
Was it the keepers?… Read More
I think that the people that I work with, including myself, sort of had a natural bend for how to catch these animals regardless of what they were in a manner that wasn’t gonna cause them any damage. I mean, I remember trying to train some of the keepers, like… Read More