Zoos do go through highs and lows. That’s a interesting situation. Now when I retired on December 31st, 1989, I made a vow never to look over anyone’s shoulder, any of my successors’ shoulder. I did say if I can be of help at any time, let me know. But… Read More
Number one, be upfront, be candid, be honest. Don’t try to pull any punches. Number two, no surprises. I mean, if we had an animal death, if it was 09:30 at night, and we discovered that the polar bear, the old polar bear that we knew it was in the… Read More
I want the park commissioner, or in my case, that was the elected official I had to deal with, park commissioner to be supportive of the zoo and vote favorably for the zoo and do things for the zoo. But at the same time, I didn’t want him to call… Read More
Would you put him on for the summer, taking care of your tigers?… Read More
No, so we always tried to structure the zoo so that they understood if you have a nephew who likes tigers, then we have a zoo explorer program and he’d be welcome to join that. And we would certainly try to help him know more about tigers, and so on. Read More
So a zoo really can’t be airtight and against interference, external or otherwise?… Read More
Zoos can’t, no, I don’t think zoos can be airtight against interference. They can certainly be strong and they can resist it a lot, but they can’t be airtight. And even when they are strong, that’s gonna change, that’s gonna fluctuate. So the zoo has to be able to, like… Read More
We’ve talked about governmental things, what advice would you give to zoo people for dealing with elected officials and municipal bureaucracies in order to develop and manage their zoo?… Read More
What advice would I give to zoo people dealing with elected officials and politicians in managing their zoos?… Read More
That’s one of the prime roles a zoo should play. Everybody has a zoo story, no matter where you go. If I give a program someplace afterwards and ask for questions, it’s not always questions. They wanna tell me a zoo story or they would, some zoo somewhere. Even in… Read More
How many people have a library story?… Read More
Some, I’m sure, but everybody has a zoo story. Read More
What caused the changes here and can zoos learn from this experience?… Read More
(chuckles) Wow, wow, wow, wow. I was fortunate during my tenure as the zoo director of Topeka from 1963 to 1989, that we had tremendous community support. For a smaller institution and a smaller community with more limited finances, that is extremely important. It’s terribly important. It’s not just people’s… Read More
I don’t know exactly how all that happened, but the zoo lost a lot of stature. And it lost stature, which reflected in the attendance, and the general support. I was sad to see that happen. It wasn’t so much a personal thing like this is my baby, and look… Read More
This town can have a good zoo. And I was just sad to see it do that. But a lot of zoos go through cycles. New Orleans went way down came back up. Atlanta went down, came back up. I was hoping our zoo wouldn’t do that, but I think… Read More
It’s coming back, all that needs to be done, but the people are starting to support it again. And I think that’s important. It’s an integral part of the community. Zoos do more than just the animals. One of the things I always felt was important about zoos is zoos… Read More
How important, you’ve talked about it, is this community support?… Read More
Can a zoo survive without it?… Read More
I am pleased to see so many zoos getting involved with field research and field conservation. I’m pleased to see zoos expanding beyond the perimeter fence of the zoo in a given community and supporting research in various wild areas around the world, not just financially supporting, but sending staff… Read More