What species do you want to retain for educational reasons, for conservation reasons, to attract visitors, that’s an important point as well. I think you couldn’t run a zoo just with mallard ducks that looks like a mallard. And then I was always keen to start mixed exhibits for species… Read More
What was your involvement in putting together the exotarium, the cloud forest for the spectacled bears, the ape house. Read More
How were you involved there?… Read More
Well, in Zurich, I was part of the team doing the master plan and then I was part of the team in realization of different enclosures. You mentioned exoterium, which was a difficult building because it contains aquarium terrarium for which Rene Honecker is credited and was responsible and I… Read More
And so I thought I could use a similar kind of ear notch, just much, much smaller. And so I introduced it in zoos. And Jim Dolan, during one of his visits in Zurich, saw the ear notches. And I made him a drawing and he took it over to… Read More
Okay. You talked about animal programs that you helped to develop. Read More
What about the physical buildings and exhibits?… Read More
Did you use ear notching?… Read More
Did you, how were you able to identify many of these species?… Read More
I’m a behaviorist. And nowadays rather conservationist but, at that time, behavior was very important for me. And of course you need to individually know each specimen and, therefore, chips do not help in identifying animals from a distance because when a pair is mating, you cannot capture them and… Read More
Or do you keep it open, as in all Tanzanian national parks?… Read More
They are never, ever fenced in. And the fencing in is a very dangerous thing because migrating animals can no longer migrate. For example, we visited the Karoo National Park in South Africa and wanted to see the black wildebeest that occurred there. And when we arrived, there was none… Read More
Did you, how did you identify animals at the zoo?… Read More
We imported, the six animals from California and Arizona. And then we bred 50 Arabian oryx, in my time, and offspring born in Zurich Zoo but were sent to Shaumari Reserve in Jordan and to Saudi Arabia. Read More
How successful was this program?… Read More
Well, the program in Shaumari was too successful. So that means, I can’t remember the size of the area, but Shaumari Reserve was fenced in and the population grew too big. And so there was a breakdown because of diseases. So that’s always the problem in your fence-in reserves. That… Read More
Were you involved in the re-introduction program of the Arabian oryx?… Read More
We sent Arabian oryx to Shaumari Reserve in Jordan and to a project in Saudi Arabia. So we were a little bit involved, but only after my transfer to Frankfurt, I think more Arabian oryx went back to the Arabian peninsula. Read More
These animals that were re-introduced, were they born at the zoo or were they imported from different zoos?… Read More
Was this the black, who was the black rhinoceros?… Read More