Interview 2817 – Caption Index: 144
But did you say Bill you wanna do it?… Read More
But did you say Bill you wanna do it?… Read More
Did you have more responsibilities?… Read More
I had more responsibilities. It wasn’t really a supervisory position per se. It was more of a someone that could talk to the keepers and report back to the head keeper or the assistant head keeper position and that they would come to the leader to issue directives. So I… Read More
And was this a job that was offered to you or did you have to take another test to do it?… Read More
It was a bad day. A week later, Jack DePrato says, “Go in and get get the leaves out,” I said, “I’m not going in that tank anymore, Jack.” He says like, “I never tell you to do something I wouldn’t do.” I said, “Well, guess what, I’m not gonna… Read More
And then he just slowly slid back in. And those are things where you really have to stop and think about what’s going on with the safety issues that you have to deal with. They’d never do that today. I mean, you’d never go in with two crocodiles even in… Read More
Now, you’re kind of moving up as a leader, 1964, you took a title of a job animal keeper leader. Read More
Did your job change?… Read More
When you say something like that happens, all these things floods through your mind and that’s exactly what happened, I think just a split second, it was, “Should I run to the back?… Read More
I’ll never make it if I tried to get over the wall, should I fall down?… Read More
Now I gotta go over the fence.” So I grabbed the fence, facing the crocodile and pulled myself up on the fence and went to pull my leg. My right leg was already laying on the fence. And I went to pull my left leg up and the cuff of… Read More
And he was up standing up in front and the elephant hit him and threw him up in the air against the front bars and the guy just dropped. And I yelled at the elephant and grabbed the hook and ran around the front and stopped the elephant. At that… Read More
So every time you had these close calls, you learn something for your future life as a curator?… Read More
Well, in a sense I did, but with the elephant, there was a totally unexpected attack. I learned at that point, I got off of elephants. I wasn’t gonna work elephants anymore. But I think the closest incident where I came within a hair’s breadth of literally being killed was… Read More
And he never went back there again. But anyhow, so the crocs in the tank, I’ve got one of the keepers, this older keeper was working in the other crocodile tank. And I went in and I’m sweeping up and there was a couple of palm fronds that was that… Read More
But do you have any other memories you’d like to share of that initial time when you were before you got promoted that stood out when you were in your formative learning years as an animal keeper?… Read More
I remember I had a lot of close calls with animals, a lot. And I was extremely lucky. I mean, we had a bull elephant Asian elephant and a female. And this bull was at an age where he was really getting tough to handle. And I remember we would… Read More
And that single event they said was well worth the trip. Read More
Do you recall any of the details of why it was so wonderful and what happened to make it memorable for those people?… Read More
(Bill laughing) I’m gonna say, no, I don’t remember that. (Mark laughing) But it would have been, we had a Komodo dragon, and I’m assuming that that’s the animal they’re talking about. We used to feed them rabbits. In fact, it reached a point where we didn’t realize this, but… Read More