But we try to, most of it still is birds. That’s the biggest thing, and so those mostly now go to the Raptor Center. We used to try not to accept big mammals. We live in a fairly varied habitat and we’ve even had people bring us live wild deer… Read More
I mean, it’s great PR. I would never, I don’t know whether they’ll ever continue, hope they’ll continue doing it ’cause I would never stop while I was there, that’s for sure. We have to be relevant. Read More
You were talking about the animal care center in the hospital that you built, having the ability for people to view things, did you make it available for people to view births of animals?… Read More
Or was that just, you never knew when it would happen?” Yeah, we didn’t know. I mean, if it happened in front of the public, it happened. Obviously we weren’t bringing animals into the hospital for them to birth. So, but if we thought we had a situation just like… Read More
They just automatically thought we would be. They never thought that we weren’t going to be a rehab center. I mean, there wasn’t any need to put the word out. It was like, there’s this place over there that talks about the desert and has desert animals. So, that’s where… Read More
I mean, we never said, “Oh, by the way, we’ll do this.” It was like, oh my God, what’s gonna come today?… Read More
Because it was pretty much a daily occurrence and I’d even go out on calls, people. I had one guy had a rattlesnake in his pool down the road and he was afraid to go outside ’cause it was in his pool. And so he called me up and he… Read More
We had ways in the hospital to segregate the rehab animals that came in, they had their own quarantine, their own wards. So, we did it. Read More
How’d you get the word out to people that you were this rehab center?… Read More
I had to put it on the public side, and if I was gonna put it on the public side, what was the point of just havin’ this big building with a sign on the door that said, “Animal Hospital?” That wasn’t gonna make the donor happy either. So, I… Read More
And so, even if there’s nothing going on in the hospital, they can see different things and there’s a total of 15 of them available and they supposedly update ’em, still are updating them periodically so they’re not the same 15 every time the kids come. And so, and then… Read More
Is that still the case today?… Read More
For the most part. A young lady who had been a volunteer with us many years ago started and fell in love with doing rehab, particularly doing raptor rehab as a volunteer, set up her own nonprofit, ultimately, which we encouraged her to do, we were really glad to help. Read More
Would I be correct that this is unique among North American zoos?… Read More
A lot of people are beginning to do it now, but yeah, it was. But I had to. See, it was a matter of, for me, I had to build…… Read More
First to make the donors happy, I had to build the best animal hospital imaginable in their minds because why would they donate to a dinky little thing?… Read More
Pathologies being done they can happen to view it if they’re there?… Read More
Mm hm. They can talk to the vet, puts a headset on, unless he’s really buried in a serious thing, then he can talk to the tech and there’s cameras, and because sometimes all you can see of what’s goin’ on is the backside of the vet. So, we have… Read More
Boom, over they go (chuckles). Read More
I’ve never seen a hospital in a zoo.” And I go, “Yes, Ma’am. Any professional zoo has got to have a hospital.” “Oh!” I think the public still to this day thinks all we do is keep these animals and throw them a bale hay once in awhile, because our… Read More