Not open to the public, but just a breeding facility. Busch Gardens has one just outside Dade City. They’ve had there for years, you know, so it’s kind of the safety valve. You can send stuff out there, hold it, you know what, because it’s about collection sustainability. And the… Read More
Does space continue to be a problem for zoos and aquariums?… Read More
It’s just understanding that we have impact coming one way or the other, positive or negative, it’s okay. Read More
That way if the budget starts to get wonky, we know what’s going on with it. Or we can anticipate problems with the budget if there’s been a lot of collection movement. Now, one elephant’s gonna make a big impact, you know, but 10 finches, you’re barely gonna see it. Read More
That mean I need to increase the gate to pay for it?… Read More
Well, maybe. Maybe there’s a combination of ways we pay for that. But, you know, I understand it. What we set up in ZooTampa was the forage manager, for instance, has the entire collection what everything costs to feed, down to the nickel. Animals come and go. Well, she knows… Read More
It’s like, if I wanted another elephant, let’s say I had to pay, I don’t know, a hundred thousand dollars for that elephant, then the CFO jumped in and said, and where’s that money coming from?… Read More
No, I’ve always battled that. I don’t like it because, first of all, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that. I think that comes from the business side of the equation. But it’s not possible. I mean, you know, the interesting argument is like we had a philosophical discussion… Read More
The animals have to figure out how to get around it or over it, in the process, you’re gonna lose a certain percentage. Those losses are tolerable. So nobody gets too excited about wildebeest. But I mean, look at Wyoming and the pronghorn, you know, some of ’em figured out… Read More
Do you think animals need to earn their keep in a zoo?… Read More
Yeah, I think so for the most part. I mean, you got Antarctic and the Arctic and yeah, you can say those are limitless spaces, but you know, having been to Africa as many times as I have and around, it’s like, nope, they’re just big, big, big managed pieces… Read More
Is there a wild out there or have the majority of wild spaces been turned into potentially managed wild zoos?… Read More
You know, if I’m gonna send you X amount of dollars, how do I know it’s gonna get to there?… Read More
And you gotta be able to prove that to me. So I think it’s still a viable concept. I think the weakness might be in the foreign country as far as reliability goes. Read More
When we established a relationship with Swaziland and paid them over a 10-year period, we said you’ve gotta give us yearly reports, pictures, written report. And they did that reliably and we knew where the money was going. And they offered, they said, if you wanna see our bank account,… Read More
You know, if we select that national park, where’s our money going is always the question, is it really gonna go there?… Read More
How do we know it’s going there?… Read More
Is it still viable?… Read More
Yeah, I think it’s viable in certain countries where the National Park System is more established and more reliable. ‘Cause a lot of countries it’s not, you know, I’m speaking specifically of Africa right now where, you know, it’s pretty loose. Read More
Why do you think zoos have not picked up the challenge in more numbers?… Read More