Because it was pretty much a daily occurrence and I’d even go out on calls, people. I had one guy had a rattlesnake in his pool down the road and he was afraid to go outside ’cause it was in his pool. And so he called me up and he… Read More
We had ways in the hospital to segregate the rehab animals that came in, they had their own quarantine, their own wards. So, we did it. Read More
How’d you get the word out to people that you were this rehab center?… Read More
I had to put it on the public side, and if I was gonna put it on the public side, what was the point of just havin’ this big building with a sign on the door that said, “Animal Hospital?” That wasn’t gonna make the donor happy either. So, I… Read More
And so, even if there’s nothing going on in the hospital, they can see different things and there’s a total of 15 of them available and they supposedly update ’em, still are updating them periodically so they’re not the same 15 every time the kids come. And so, and then… Read More
Is that still the case today?… Read More
For the most part. A young lady who had been a volunteer with us many years ago started and fell in love with doing rehab, particularly doing raptor rehab as a volunteer, set up her own nonprofit, ultimately, which we encouraged her to do, we were really glad to help. Read More
Would I be correct that this is unique among North American zoos?… Read More
A lot of people are beginning to do it now, but yeah, it was. But I had to. See, it was a matter of, for me, I had to build…… Read More
First to make the donors happy, I had to build the best animal hospital imaginable in their minds because why would they donate to a dinky little thing?… Read More
Pathologies being done they can happen to view it if they’re there?… Read More
Mm hm. They can talk to the vet, puts a headset on, unless he’s really buried in a serious thing, then he can talk to the tech and there’s cameras, and because sometimes all you can see of what’s goin’ on is the backside of the vet. So, we have… Read More
Boom, over they go (chuckles). Read More
I’ve never seen a hospital in a zoo.” And I go, “Yes, Ma’am. Any professional zoo has got to have a hospital.” “Oh!” I think the public still to this day thinks all we do is keep these animals and throw them a bale hay once in awhile, because our… Read More
They had no idea. One guy said to me, “I’d rather come here than our local hospital. It’s cleaner and better.” Now, let’s digress. The hospital, you said every aspect of the hospital is open to the public and yet people don’t mind it but- I mean, obviously it’s a… Read More
So, when surgery’s being done people could view it if they happen to be there?… Read More
Yep. Read More
We developed first a small hospital building big to deal with all the rehab animals. Because, and by that point, when we built the hospital building, we had not many exotic, I mean, at all, but we had the sheep and we had coyotes and we had our kit foxes… Read More
And we were really lucky that way, but the hospital, people come in and they’re just shocked. They’re shocked at two things. Read More
The thing about hospitals and zoos, I’m digressing, that was the most valuable thing about our hospital was the fact that almost to a person, the first question we would get when somebody would walk into the hospital was, “Does every zoo have a hospital?… Read More