Had it been my personal zoo, I would have built the rainforest first, because the concept for the rainforest was this geodesic dome, one structure with a ecosystem of live plants, birds and free-flight bats and free-flight animals roaming free, and visitor walks through. So you get multiple experiences. It… Read More
How’s this exhibit designed?… Read More
It was drawing upon them and their perspective of zoos, their perceptions, their knowledge of the literature, and just communication. And I don’t know, it was just, and I learned so much every time I went. Took a lot of slides, kept a card file on things. That was a… Read More
What was the first big development you did at the zoo?… Read More
What was your first big vision that you wanted to get accomplished?… Read More
Now why was it important for you to visit a lot of zoos?… Read More
Oh, number one, that’s how you learn. Number two, I think the highest compliment you can pay any zoo person is to visit them in their zoo or aquarium. Number three, it’s to develop the rapport, the professional rapport. Read More
And it wasn’t just how do you manage this animal?… Read More
Now, what zoo professionals were either your mentors, or did you learn from and respect while you were in this position?… Read More
Well, certainly Mr. Cully continued, during his tenure at the Kansas City Zoo, to be, he would come over periodically. Walk, and do the rounds, make the rounds with me, and that was, well, I loved that, that was marvelous. He was great. And early, when I first came, Clayton… Read More
And then he was a reptile guy. And when I was a keeper at Kansas City, and I would take the train to St. Louis, then I’d see him over there. So we were kinda the same generation and we became buddies. So as he progressed up the line, he… Read More
Fred Stark at San Antonio and Matt Marlin early on and Warren Thomas who was up at Omaha at the time, just every everybody was. It’s the days when it was like a big fraternity. It’s usually one zoo per town, maybe two, and even though you had a staff… Read More
You take down the chainlink fence and you dig a moat. And then of course, before when you put the zebras out, you string some burlap along so then they’ll know where the boundary. Then you eventually take that down. Now the same visitor comes up and stands at the… Read More
We just wanted to make it better for the visitors’ perception. And in zoo biz, that’s what a lot of it is. So that was one thing. The other thing was we had this old building. It was a greenhouse built in 1909. It was called a monkey house because… Read More
We sawed it in two, glued it together on the other side of the glass and let it come out to the visitor. You could hardly see the glass. You could put your hand on the same log that the constrictor’s on. Yeah, that was, just little things like that,… Read More
But in this one building were mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and some invertebrates. And so we were trying to expand into people’s, individual’s mind that it’s not just the charismatic megavertebrates, but it’s other things too, come in and see ’em. Read More
We were unique for a zoo our size to have something like that. Read More
How did zoo exhibits change and evolve during your time?… Read More
We had a lot of old, a four-letter word I don’t like to use C-A-G-E, we had a lot of those, just the old barred cages. And I wanted to change that even though it’s a psychological thing with a visitor and a lot of chainlink fence. And I wanted… Read More
I said, I’d like to see the master plan in Gage Park and traffic patterns, and so on, before we do a master plan for the zoo, no. And drainage and service and utilities, all the underground stuff. Not the glamorous, the underground stuff. No, they wouldn’t do it. So… Read More