Mark, as a child, there were two things I wanted to do in life. One was work in the zoo and the other was go to Africa. And I’d always had this fascination with wildlife and the animals of Africa and Africa itself always intrigued me. And my father, a… Read More
In fact, when I was seven years old, he got me my own membership at National Geographic Society. Now that’s long before they had these junior memberships, like they have these days, full fledge. So he’d get his magazine, I get my magazine. And that was really good. It encouraged… Read More
Gary K. Clarke, K stands for king. (chuckles) Just joking. I was born in Wichita, Kansas on January 19th, 1939. And grew up early years in Kansas, but then moved back to Virginia ’cause of my father’s job and then to Kansas City, Missouri. So I finished grade school in… Read More
What zoos did you see when you were growing up?… Read More
Well, the first zoo I am told that I saw was the old Central Riverside Park Zoo in Wichita which, quite honestly I don’t remember seeing it then. I remember seeing it in later years, but that probably was the first zoo that I visited. The zoo I remember most… Read More
Well, we have, I have, at the moment, 54, including some marginated tortoises that Fabian loaned me because he has no garden in Leipzig. And well, I do not breed on a large scale and I usually find interested persons who takes them. I do not sell them but I… Read More
So we can look forward to a paper?… Read More
This is one of the papers I should write, yeah. Good. Read More
And what do you do with them after you have been successful?… Read More
How many do you have?… Read More
No, I just tried to discourage him for about five years. I told him we need a lawyer in the family, we need a medical doctor in the family, a dentist maybe, and they earn well. But he didn’t obey me. Now I’m quite proud and it’s very nice to… Read More
How did you get involved with breeding the Mediterranean tortoises or keeping them?… Read More
I started about 50 years ago and at that time, hundreds and thousands of tortoises were imported from Greece and Yugoslavia. And they were sold or holiday makers brought them back from their holidays. And usually, after a few months, the new owners had enough of the tortoises and brought… Read More
One cannot avoid, if you work in a zoo, you cannot avoid that the whole family get into contact with the zoo. First of all, you usually work more than eight hours, 10 hours or more. You have to go weekends to the zoo and maybe the children are coming… Read More
And I keep at home, keep and breed Mediterranean tortoises at home. And usually Fabian cared for them because I just couldn’t find time. Now I have to find time to care for them and observe them. So his first wish for a profession was to become a curator of… Read More
Did you encourage him?… Read More
Well, we have two sons and a daughter and the middle one, a son, is senior curator in Leipzig Zoo. Read More
And how did he get involved in the zoo and this interest?… Read More
She allowed bottle feeding. We thought, wonderful. But after about five days, that was a very young female that never have had a young herself. And after five days, she had enough of this foster child and left it on the ground. And now the great thing happened. The other… Read More
So that’s, I think, a very good success story. Read More