Well, I mean, you know, there’s tick off marks. You know, we’ve already talked about presidency of the association and the work with giant pandas. For me, I guess it’s in reflection, it’s probably that I was the first non-director ever to serve on the AZA board twice and the… Read More
Do you have an opinion?… Read More
There is, I won’t say a new kid in town, but there’s the Zoological Association of America. That was a breakaway from the American Zoo Associations. It seems like to me, they cannot work together. It seems like that’s what they wanna do. Read More
Why is there in your opinion, this, is there a place for both to be working together toward the good of animals as you’ve talked about?… Read More
And if you could go in and change something, in hindsight, what would it be?… Read More
As we’ve discussed earlier on, the SSP was a cooperative management program developed for the conservation of identified species. It was done in a way that everybody worked together to accomplish a set of specified goals. Over time, what’s happened to it is, is the bureaucrats have walked into it. Read More
There are so many layers of discussion, approval, non-approval, justification, all of those words that we all have those layers that we learn and that it’s almost self-limiting. And the association is finally beginning to realize that there’s a real problem. And there also is a real problem about having… Read More
You had talked about the SSP and you were very much involved in the program, from its earliest conception, looking back last 40 years, how do you see its evolution?… Read More
What were its successes, what are its failures?… Read More
What do you see 40 years from today?… Read More
Does conservation, is education, is the research aspect?… Read More
Do they all have a place or should one be more emphasized for the future of the zoos as we move forward?… Read More
In my view, one of our major obligations is interpretation. We have a role to play in informing people, both formally and informally in education programs, in whatever activities are on the zoo grounds. We have an obligation to those animals that we hold to make contributions to conservation, more… Read More
Have you really experienced, have you really experienced what animals in captive, how animals are maintained in captivity?… Read More
And do you really understand how they can be ambassadors for their own kind, and the good that comes out of that?… Read More
The understanding, the concern for the environment. Most animal activists that I’ve encountered, and those that I’ve done one-on-ones with in those groups that I’ve tried to engage are so, almost rabid in their desire to see an end to elephants, to killer whales, to zoos, that they’re beyond reasoning… Read More
So for the future of zoos, is there one thing that’s potentially more important?… Read More
I understand it’s a very dramatic, but I think it’s a, as they say, it’s a, maybe a two-day news cycle. And then after that people forget. Read More
What do you say to these animal activists or other people who don’t believe zoos should be in existence?… Read More
I think they haven’t taken, I say to them, do you really understand what you’re saying?… Read More