Interview 29556 – Caption Index: 387
And it wasn’t so much, you know, how we were doing it or the shape or size of our pools or what we’re feeding the animals. Read More
And it wasn’t so much, you know, how we were doing it or the shape or size of our pools or what we’re feeding the animals. Read More
That that is a challenge only, I encourage it. Number one, I think that’s in our best interest. There are individuals that don’t want to hear what we have to say or anything you have to say. I say, that’s not right. That’s not true. They, they, there’s no reception… Read More
How do you feel though, that the aquarium can achieve dialogue with animal activists?… Read More
And a lot of people, it’s kind of taken aback. I was not the best spokesperson. I was good, but we had other individuals in some areas that could do a better job. So it depended on what the issue was or what the question was. And a lot of… Read More
So it’s that all those elements are things that would be presented and it’s often best to those people in a higher level of management. But again, if it’s maybe a specific animal, they might say, well, you know, John over here, he, he really knows about these Australian lung… Read More
That’s the common image that the activists always try to, to present. And the, the reality, our, our response is we recognize we’re not the ocean. We’re never gonna be the ocean. But we try to preserve, well preserve, but present a healthy environment to the animal. We give them… Read More
So do you feel that curators and professional staff need more training to interact with animal rights groups?… Read More
But, you know, you could come across, do you think these animals are comfortable living in this small concrete bathtub?… Read More
It wouldn’t hurt, certainly in all the public relation training we had, we would often identify representative individuals that you could tell in working with the staff. This guy’s a great spokesperson. He’s level-headed. He basically identifies, you know, elements of our mission, you know, education, conservation, whatever. He can… Read More
If you have, you know, Sparky the favorite beagle, you know, everybody’s, oh, I wanna see Sparky. Where’s Sparky? You know, if you see Shamu, you wanna go to the Shamu and sit in their first five rows. So you get splaShedd by Shamu and you can talk about it. Read More
’cause they’re hard to find. But after a while we said, you know what?… Read More
We, we need to find other locations. We can’t keep going back to the same place. And so indeed that’s what we did. So through scuba diving, you know, obviously you can see the animals and you realize here’s a good place, here’s a good place. So there is concern… Read More
So places like The Bahamas, which was a common collecting place for us, we always have to report to the Bahamian government in getting a permit from them, how many animals we intend to collect and where we intend to collect them. And the C Aquarium for years has kept… Read More
The big one are the marine mammals, just because they’re the big, you know, everybody loves the marine mammals, the whales, the dolphins. I mean, look at our gift shop sales. When you’re selling plush animals, it’s always a little beluga, a seal, a sea otter. I always say, when… Read More
And that’s how the sea otters actually came to us. We were on a huge aircraft. It was just our staff and four sea otters, which was, to this day, I think, kind of funny. But it was very good for us because I don’t know that that one even… Read More
Or are they also interested in the fishes?… Read More
But there were times too where they had a dead, a deadhead flight where they’re going back to a certain airport empty anyway, so why don’t we put the whales on?… Read More
Would you say animal rights activists are more interested in marine mammals or, and the otters and the whales and so forth?… Read More
It was that level of paranoia because of these guys’ presence. So they did a good job as far as voicing their opinion, if you will, but they didn’t stop our activities. And ultimately when you got the animals back, also you had to do it under high security in… Read More
So it was, it was heavily guarded. There was times, I remember we would move an animal during the evening hours when people might not be expecting it. And often it was more a matter of logistics, it was better. Number one, it’s cooler, which the marine mammals needed cooler… Read More