You need numbers to actually say you’re, you’re managing, and you’re making decisions because you can’t make a decision with a pair of animals other than do we breed them or don’t we breed them. And the genetics are the genetics. You can’t, you know, so. So I think our… Read More
One of our board directors lived on a lake west of Omaha. And the guy who owned the lake was a bit of a gambler. I’ll put that gently as I can. And needed to borrow some money. And he put up the lake as collateral, was wanting to put… Read More
And he said, you know, this is also some land that he owns. And I said, well, why don’t you, why don’t you make him put that up as collateral too ’cause with his reputation, he’s probably going to default. Read More
And if he defaults and he said, well, what would I do with it?… Read More
What vision, when you became director, did you have for the zoo?… Read More
What was your vision?… Read More
Well, I, no, certainly there were things that I wanted to do and it had to start when I became director, I had to start a good collection. We had a lot of, of a really interesting hoofstock, you know, a big duiker collection, a lot of different species of… Read More
And so, you know, one of the things that we developed pretty early on was a philosophy of not simply having a postage stamp display collection, that where you had a pair of animals or a trio, or, you know, or four animals or whatever, but to develop breeding groups… Read More
Well, I, no, I would agree with that. It’s not that I’ve got anything against PhDs. I don’t. You know, I mean, along the way I picked up about three of them myself, but you know, honorary. And we’ve got, you know, we’ve got on our, in our, in our… Read More
It’s not good for the, you know, for the profession. And it’s certainly not good for the individual animals because you don’t know and you make mistakes. That’s how, that’s how a lot of mistakes are made. I, you know, there are, if you look around late in the history,… Read More
But I, I’ve got some very strong opinions that, that everybody ought to start out getting their hands dirty and working and sweating, and get to know the animals and know the animals personally. It’s not that you can’t, you know, get an advanced degree and do that, or, you… Read More
And there’s a fair number of zoos where that simply isn’t the case, where there’s veterinarians are only allowed to touch clinically ill or injured animals. And that’s wrong. You become director of the Omaha Zoo. Read More
One of the things that I think, you know, because as we developed and we came along, we’ve taken a lot of students and maybe we touch on that and then a little bit later on, but you know, we’ve taken a lot of over the years, a lot of… Read More
And you’ve got a pretty good handle whether this individual has a work ethic or not. And whether this individual’s got a passion, you know, a fire in their belly. And I think the passion and the fire in their belly is really important, and a work ethic. Some people… Read More
Have you dealt with this as a zoo director?… Read More
And how does, how could zoos potentially correct this kind of thing or is there a matter of concern at all?… Read More
But you know, the paperwork and the budget and all of that, those were just things that you did in order to be able to do the things that were fun. And the animal part of it was fun. So I always kept my hand in, even, you know, when… Read More
Now, what were you looking for in curators?… Read More
What kind of skillset?… Read More
Well, I think, yeah, certainly a work ethic, but some, some animal experience. And I guess probably the most important thing is, is a passion, a fire in the belly for animals. I get really nervous. I get really nervous around people who tell me how much they love animals. Read More