So our first offsite facility was at Forbes, which used to be an air force base. And now it’s just Forbes Field. It’s the main airport in town. And they have some ammunition storage areas out there, which are now abandoned, but they’re big bunkers covered with earth and then… Read More
Then we started the Przewalski horses out there. And that became so successful for us that we convinced the city to allow us to buy a farm in the county, 160 acre farm. And we got this regulation perimeter fence, got it approved, USDA. Not open to the public, and… Read More
Yes, and the science and research that we started out with was the ready-made one of the nutritional studies, but then I wanted to get Washburn University involved, even KU or K State. K State has a vet school. And so if we could cooperate with them in some way… Read More
And that’s when we had an off-site conservation propagation center too, 160 acres out in the county with P horses and all kinds of stuff. But the other thing that we were able to do initially was some of these eagles, golden eagles and bald eagles that were brought in,… Read More
That seems very unusual for a small zoo. Yes. Couple of things. One, we are a small zoo. Our zoo occupies about 30 acres in Gage Park, which is only 160 acres. And I was always conscientious about it. I want the zoo to override the park. I begged the… Read More
And how important was conservation at the time you started or your vision for it?… Read More
Well, I believed in it. I thought it was one of the important functions of the zoo. I wasn’t really sure how much we in Topeka could do. We were one of these zoos that would receive injured animals. So we were a rehab facility for local species. We did… Read More
And Philadelphia was right up about that time too. I wanted to do something with it, but quite honestly, there wasn’t a lot I could do at the time. The best thing we’d do with conservation, it was conservation education, was to get people aware of the importance of conservation… Read More
Did you think about science and research as part of what the zoo would make out or?… Read More
Did you have thoughts then about education in the zoo and how did you try and start to implement this?… Read More
Yes, first thing was there were virtually no labels. So the first thing was to do labels. And not just the typical English name or common name, scientific name, range, food, longevity. Read More
What’s a neat little behavior bit that maybe people could actually see this animal doing in this zoo?… Read More
So I try to come up with that kind of stuff. Park department made the labels, these old plastic labels for the router, (Gary mimics whining machine) type thing, you know, they were very good about letting me use some of that stuff. That was number one, but number two,… Read More
I said, “What we need before we need an elephant,” I said, “What I wanna do, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it, we need to form an organization to help the zoo in many ways.” So that’s what I thought maybe the 2030 Club would… Read More
So we did. Read More
So this was part of your vision for the zoo?… Read More
Yeah, it wasn’t specifically Friends of the Zoo or support organization. The vision was get the community involved. And that was a good way to do it. That was one way to do it and a good way to do it. Read More
And that all came, that’s something a small zoo can do. I mean, if you’ve got a resource in your community, join forces with that resource. So that was a good thing. And so I came in October ’63, and in April ’64 we formed the Topeka Friends of the… Read More
Was Friends of the Zoo your idea or did people come to you?… Read More
No, it was my idea, I actually had a fella come to me though and say he’s with a local club, it’s not the Jaycees. It’s called the 2030 Club. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with ’em, but you have to be between 21 and 39 and you have… Read More