He died. And underneath him in the straw was a black widow spider that matched the bite wound. It was a zebra duiker, one of the rarest little antelope in the world. You know, I couldn’t do anything about it. How do you treat a black widow spider bite in… Read More
And I think that’s the thing that we’ve lost in the zoo world to a large degree is people with a farm background, with an animal livestock background, with an animal husbandry, you know. And in those, in the early days, there were a lot of people who came to… Read More
What was your relationship with the, your zoo staff?… Read More
And I said, what’s wrong?… Read More
And he said, he hasn’t moved. And he usually moves at least twice by this time of the night. Read More
And I said, what’s he doing?… Read More
No. No. And I think that’s a big problem in that if you lose track, I mean, what zoos are about, what zoos are about are animals and animal husbandry and animal care. I mean, that’s what, you know, that’s, that’s what it’s all about. And, and then if you… Read More
They, they, you know, they, they’re kind of desk bound by the book types who really don’t, you know, who really don’t have that connection, that touch with their, with the animals. And that’s how a lot of mistakes are made because you can’t, you know, you can’t just have… Read More
We were desperate for somebody to be there all night and make the rounds and watch the furnaces and whatever. And we’re hired him and found out that number one, he hardly, hardly spoke English. And secondly, he was a raging alcoholic. But by the time we found that out,… Read More
You better, there’s something wrong. You better come look. You know, he would say, there’s something wrong, you better come look. And you found out really quick, you better go look because this guy had an eye, he had an eye and a touch. And I remember zebra duiker once,… Read More
But, you know, I learned that early on from, from our very first hoofstock keeper that I really, when it really sank home and that he was always a very polite guy and he would always preface everything with, well, I, you know, I don’t want to tell you how… Read More
You mentioned making rounds. Read More
Do you feel that people that are heading institutions today, they can be vets, that can be business people, so do you think they make the rounds as much as you?… Read More
And we still got a lot of that, you know, that character that, you know, that, that philosophy within the, within the organization, a lot of things that we’ve done over the years, building our own buildings, we also had trouble spelling permit. So there was a fair number of… Read More
What, how would you describe your style of director, of directing people when you were director?… Read More
I’d always had an open door policy. Basically the idea was anybody could walk into my office at any time. Nobody had to make an appointment to walk into my office and talk to me. I made rounds, and certainly in those early days, a long time, I made rounds… Read More
The problem of course is that if that keeper won’t talk to you, if that keeper doesn’t communicate with you, if that keeper doesn’t say, hey, we got a problem down here. I don’t know what it is, but we got a problem, then having him around is, is kind… Read More
As director now, when you first start, are you continuing to work with animals?… Read More
Well, as, since I’ve oh, yes. Well, because, you know, in effect I was, yes, I was director of the zoo, but it was also still, I was also still veterinarian and curator because we only had 14 people when I became director. We only had 14 people on the… Read More
I mean, we used to, and they still do today yet. You know, I mean, it became a tradition around the place to do work parties and that you couldn’t afford to hire something done in those early days. So you put together a work crew, a work party if… Read More