Visitor attitudes in zoos, they’ve changed a lot because of, in my opinion, because of television, the influence of television and wildlife specials, some good, some bad. I’m not real enthused about some of the things that we see because they’re misleading. They give people the misconception of animals and… Read More
What issues caused you the most concern during the time that you were zoo director and how do you see the future regarding those same type of issues?… Read More
Do you think the average zoo professional is professionally well-traveled as you were?… Read More
I think I did have a great opportunity to travel a lot. And I traveled in the States to see other zoos or traveled to wild places. Read More
Other zoos?… Read More
Other zoos in particular. I think they travel some, but it’s rather than, we used to do what we call a zoo marathon. If the AZA was in Buffalo, New York, and we were in Topeka Kansas, then we’d figure out who’s gonna be able to go. And half the… Read More
What’s the breeding situation?… Read More
And it’s a lot of book knowledge, but books are important. They need to read books, but they haven’t had the hands-on experience. I sometimes think it’d be great if those who wanna be curators could spend time, not just working as a keeper in a zoo, but working on… Read More
When I talk to old-time zoo people, we always mentioned Hediger. Well, there’s a lot of people who don’t even know who Hediger is. And I cringe when I see that. I see that they’re losing touch with the perspective and culture of what zoos are. So like more hands-on… Read More
How do you actually work with this species, with individual animals of a given species?… Read More
How do you transfer them?… Read More
How do you exhibit them? What’s their diets?… Read More
Why don’t they come out to this fabulous resource?… Read More
So I don’t know if they were ever successful in identifying that. We probably didn’t have the proper method in trying to pursue that and didn’t have the money to hire somebody who could do that. So you didn’t find the answer. Nah, I don’t know. Sometimes you hear a… Read More
Do you think that’s a problem and how do you think curators should be trained today and what’s expected of that?… Read More
Well, I think curators today, like I said, no. Remember I’ve been actively out of the zoo profession for 21 years, but I’m still associated with it. I mean, I still wanna keep up with it, but I think curators today all seem to have the academic training. They’ve all… Read More
But why don’t some people come to the zoo?… Read More
I remember, when I first came to Topeka in 1963, people would come out to Gage Park into the zoo to see the animals, to be in a semi-natural setting. By that, I mean, we have a lot of shade trees and it’s very pleasant in landscape grounds. Over time,… Read More
Nothing replaces a living, breathing creature. Read More
But I wonder why aren’t we reaching some of these people?… Read More