No, that was the teddy bear. You had a snake called the Big Sucker. Okay. We had an occasion in St. Louis where a man had a python. It was a Burmese python and it was about 12-feet long and he would take it out and handle it. (coughs) It… Read More
And the proof of it, I found out from the coroner. The coroner called me the next day and said, “We just want you to know that that man did die from asphyxiation by the snake. How common is that?” I said, “Well really unusual. The snake must’ve panicked or… Read More
But anyway, I called Jerry up to my office. And at that time, we always said, “Any act of careless, you’re fired.” And I called Jerry up. He thought she was gonna be fired. I said, “Jerry. You know, everybody’s entitled to one mistake. One mistake only and you’ve had… Read More
He thought he was gonna be fired. Read More
So we had to lock up the building. The pool led to a keeper passage. I mean a closed-in passage, so we thought it was confined there. But it also led to a similar passage under cages in the basement. We locked the building down. We even closed the zoo. Read More
I’ve forgotten how many days later. But we sprinkled talcum powder and diatomaceous earth on the floor, all hallway, keeper passages, everywhere in the whole building. And then we knew where every cockroach was in the building. The only place we saw tracks was in the holding crawlspace under the… Read More
We had flashlights and there was the spitting cobra. He was in the trap, but he turned around and went back out. But I had to grabber with me and I grabbed him and Ron had to run up and get a welding mask because these are spitting cobras. I… Read More
Would you say that certain skills of animal management and handling have been lost and is that a bad or good thing?… Read More
I think they’ve just changed because you’re managing animals in a more sophisticated way. In fact, there’s a whole new science called animal enrichment where the keepers are thinking of new ways to get the animals to behave in a natural way by hiding food in hollow trees and hollow… Read More
Can you tell us a story about the spitting cobra?… Read More
We had a spitting cobra in the reptile house and a keeper named Jerry McNeal was taking care of the big cages at the time. He was cleaning the spitting cobra. At that time the cages were a large cage with a door in the back and a pool. And… Read More
Henry. I got very fond of that animal. When he graduated from the reptile house and he went to the monkey house and I went to see him often, he always recognized me. He always came by, wanted to lick and interact. Animal handling. Read More
Has it changed from when you started to when you became and progressed during your tenure as director?… Read More
Well I think in animal handling, the concept of hand raising animals and having tame animals was a big thing. And in fact, we hand raised a baby lesser kudu and that female became so tame she tamed on the entire herd. So it really played a role in our… Read More
They were about the same age. And later on, they both erupted a left lower tooth first and then left lower right and then the upper left and the upper right. Same time. Their expressions, their attitudes devolved same time. They started grabbing more with their hands. But when the… Read More
If you look at the skull of a human adult, the brain case is really big and the face is real small. And you look at the great ape, the face is very big and the brain case is very little. So the brain continues to develop as everything else… Read More
And what was that orang’s name?… Read More
I mean I realize you love reptiles. Read More
But was there a unique animal that was a favorite of yours?… Read More
I helped raise a baby orangutan. When you raise a baby animal and watch it develop. In fact, I raised him at the same time we had my youngest son Brad at home. So always watchin’ the facial expression as both of these infants nursed on the bottle. In the… Read More