That’s one of the prime roles a zoo should play. Everybody has a zoo story, no matter where you go. If I give a program someplace afterwards and ask for questions, it’s not always questions. They wanna tell me a zoo story or they would, some zoo somewhere. Even in… Read More
How many people have a library story?… Read More
Some, I’m sure, but everybody has a zoo story. Read More
What caused the changes here and can zoos learn from this experience?… Read More
(chuckles) Wow, wow, wow, wow. I was fortunate during my tenure as the zoo director of Topeka from 1963 to 1989, that we had tremendous community support. For a smaller institution and a smaller community with more limited finances, that is extremely important. It’s terribly important. It’s not just people’s… Read More
I don’t know exactly how all that happened, but the zoo lost a lot of stature. And it lost stature, which reflected in the attendance, and the general support. I was sad to see that happen. It wasn’t so much a personal thing like this is my baby, and look… Read More
This town can have a good zoo. And I was just sad to see it do that. But a lot of zoos go through cycles. New Orleans went way down came back up. Atlanta went down, came back up. I was hoping our zoo wouldn’t do that, but I think… Read More
It’s coming back, all that needs to be done, but the people are starting to support it again. And I think that’s important. It’s an integral part of the community. Zoos do more than just the animals. One of the things I always felt was important about zoos is zoos… Read More
How important, you’ve talked about it, is this community support?… Read More
Can a zoo survive without it?… Read More
I am pleased to see so many zoos getting involved with field research and field conservation. I’m pleased to see zoos expanding beyond the perimeter fence of the zoo in a given community and supporting research in various wild areas around the world, not just financially supporting, but sending staff… Read More
I still feel that the perception and concept of zoos is misunderstood by most people. I’d like to see us address that. And, I guess, through better education. And I would like to see the zoos, I would like to see zoos, I think there’s maybe, we always, not always,… Read More
And service can be a meeting place, a place where civic clubs meet, even a latchkey program, where the kids, some of the kids whose parents work, what do they do after school?… Read More
Guys, why not come to the zoo and have programs at the zoo for them?… Read More
I think there’s just a lot of potential for that to happen. You’ve talked about this a little, but for a long time, decades, you built a strong basis within the community for support of the zoo, but, in time, to see it start to deteriorate. Read More
I think we have a long way to go in that regard though. And I guess the other thing is I see zoos stepping out of character. I see zoos becoming more, I don’t know how to phrase it, maybe entertainment centers, than zoological centers. Particularly in the US, we’ve… Read More
And spiders are fascinating animals. And I’d rather people go to the zoo to see spiders than to see some cartoon character. I guess I’ve always felt that that, particularly children who are impressionable, I wish they would learn about animals as they are, accept animals for being themselves. And… Read More
So tomorrow, if you could make it happen, what issues would you want the zoos to address in the future?… Read More
If I could make it happen tomorrow, what issues should zoos address?… Read More
The issues that caused me the most concern when I was zoo director, (moans) gosh. I guess, strictly from the zoo person’s point of view, one of the issues was status of animals in the wild and captive propagation. Read More