This was home. So I didn’t wanna move out, but I was out of town and out of the country much of the time in Africa. But I did not have a direct line to the zoo as far as any information or what was going on with activities or… Read More
I didn’t get a call from my successors saying, what do you think of this or we need help, or can you do this?… Read More
I would go to the grocery store, the post office, or the library and people, I mean, 10, 15 years later, people would say, oh, hi Gary, how are things at the zoo?… Read More
So it’s a trade off, I guess. (chuckles) You mentioned that some just go through highs and lows in their governance. And Topeka Zoo temporarily lost its accreditation. Read More
Why do you think that that type of thing came about?… Read More
Why did Topeka Zoo lose its accreditation?… Read More
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